MINNIE AND HER SHELL.
So the simple ways of Joshua's simple life were drawing to a close. He
had chosen his career, and to-morrow he would be at the end of the
quiet groove in which he had hitherto moved, and would step upon
rougher roads, to commence the battle which dooms many a
fair-promising life to a despairing death, and out of which no one
comes without scars and wounds which art and time are powerless to
heal. To-morrow he was to leave a father almost too indulgent; a mother
whose heart was as true in its motherly affection for him as the
needle is to the pole; a friend who gave him a love as tender and as
pure as that which angels could feel.
During the past week he had been busily engaged in leave-taking, and
he had been surprised to find what a number of friends he had. There
was not one of the poor neighbors, in the poor locality in which he
had passed his boyhood's days, who had not kind words and good wishes
for him, and who did not give them heartily and without stint. Many a
hearty handwillshake from men whose hands he had never touched before,
and many a motherly kiss from women he had been in the habit of saying
only "Good-morning" to, did Joshua receive. There is a stronger
knitting of affection between poor people in poor neighborhoods than
there is among the rich in their wider thoroughfares. Perhaps it is
the narrow streets that draw them closer to each other; perhaps it is
the common struggle to keep body and soul together in which they are
all engaged; perhaps it is the unconscious recognition of a higher law
of humanity than prevails elsewhere; perhaps it is the absence of the
wider barriers of exclusiveness, among which the smaller and more
beautiful flowers of feeling--being so humble and unassuming--are in
danger of being lost or overlooked. Anyhow the ties of affection are
stronger among the poor. Putting necessity and sickness aside, more
mothers nurse their babes from love among the poor than among the
rich.
The secret of this unanimity of goodwill towards Joshua lay in his
uniformly quiet demeanor and affectionate disposition. The wonderful
friendship that existed between Dan and Joshua was a household word in
the poor homes round about; there was something so beautiful in it,
that they felt a pride in the circumstance of its having been cemented
in their midst; and many tender-hearted women said that night to their
husbands, that they wondered what Dan would do now that Joshua was
going away. "And Josh, too," the husband would reply; "do you think
he won't miss Dan?" But the women thought mostly of Dan in that
relationship. The romance of the thing had something to do with this
general interest in his welfare. Here was a young man, one of their
own order, born and bred among them, who, from no contempt of their
humble ways of life but from a distinct desire to do better than they
(not to _be_ better; that they would have resented), had resolved to
go out into the world to carve a way for himself. It was brave and
manly; it was daring and heroic. For the world was so wide! Cooped-up
as _they_ were, what did they know of it? What did they see of it?
Those of them--the few--who worked at home in their once-a-week
shirt-sleeves, could raise their eyes from their work, and see the
dull prospect of over the way; or, resting wearily from the monotonous
labor, could stroll to their street-doors, and look up and down the
street in a meaningless, purposeless manner: like automatons in
aprons, with dirty faces and very black finger-nails, coming out of a
box and performing a task in which there was necessarily no sense of
enjoyment.
Those of them--the many--who toiled in workshops other than their
homes, saw with the rising and the setting of every sun a few narrow
streets within the circumference of a mile, mayhap. Moving always in
the same groove, trudging to their workshops every morning, trudging
home every night--it was the same thing for them day after day. The
humdrum course of time was only marked by the encroachment of gray
hairs and white; or by the patching-up of the poor furniture, which
grew more rheumatic, and groaned more dismally every succeeding
season; or by the cracking and dismemberment of cups and saucers and
plates; or by the slow death of the impossible figures on the
tea-trays--figures which were bright and gay once upon a time, as
their owners were upon a certain happy wedding-day. Here, as a type,
are three small mugs, the letters upon which are either quite faded
away, or are denoted by a very mockery of shrivelled lines, as if
their lives were being drawn out to the last stage of miserable
attenuation. Once they proclaimed themselves proudly, and in golden
letters, "For George, a Birthday Present;" "For Mary Ann, with
Mother's Love;" "Charley, for a Good Boy." George and Mary, Ann and
Charley used to clap their little hands, and swing their little legs
delightedly, when they and the mugs kept company at breakfast and
tea-time; but now flesh and crockery have grown old, and are fading
away in common. The hair on George's head is very thin, although he is
not yet forty years of age; Mary Ann is an anxious-looking mother,
with six dirty children, who, as she declares twenty times a day, are
enough to worry the life out of her; and Charley has turned out any
thing but "a Good Boy," being much too fond of public-houses. With
such like uninteresting variations, the lives of George and Mary Ann
and Charley were typical of the lives of all the poor people amongst
whom the Marvels lived. From the cradle to the grave, every thing the
same; the same streets, the same breakfasts, the same dinners, the
same uneventful routine of existence, the only visible signs upon the
record being the deepening of wrinkles and the whitening of hairs. But
they were happy enough, notwithstanding; and if their pulses were
stirred into quicker motion when they shook Joshua's hand and wished
him good luck, there was no envy towards him in their minds, and no
feeling of discontent marred the genuineness of their God-speed. When
at candle-time they spoke of Joshua and of the world which he was
going to see, some of the women said that it would have been better if
"you, John," or "you, William," "had struck out for yourself when you
were young;" and John and William assenting, sighed to think that it
was too late for them to make a new start. Well, their time was past;
the tide which they might have taken at the flood, but did not, would
never come again to their life's shore. Joshua _had_ taken it at the
flood, and would be afloat to-morrow; good luck be with him! In the
heartiness of their good wishes there was no expressed consciousness
that there was as much heroism in their quiet lives as in the lives of
great heroes and daring adventurers; which very unconsciousness and
unexpressed abnegation made that heroism (begging Mr. Ruskin's pardon
for calling it so) all the grander.
Joshua had bidden the Old Sailor good-by. The dear, simple old fellow
had given Joshua some golden rules to go by; had enjoined him to be
respectful and submissive; to learn all he could; to be cheerful
always, and to do his work willingly, however hard it seemed; not to
mix himself up in the men's quarrels or grumblings; had told him how
that some officers were querulous, and some were tyrannical, but that
he could always keep himself out of mischief by obeying orders; and
had impressed upon him, more particularly than all, the value of the
golden motto--Duty. "Keep that for your watchword, my lad," said the
Old Sailor, "and you will do."
"I am glad it is nearly all over," said Joshua to Dan. "I have only
two or three more to say good-by to, with the exception of mother and
father, and Ellen and you, dear Dan."
"There's Susan, Jo," said Dan after a pause. "I wish you could see her
before you go."
"I wish so, too. I am going now to say good-by to Minnie and her
father."
"Is he better, Jo?"
"I haven't seen him for a week; but I don't think he is ever quite
right here;" touching his forehead.
They were speaking of the street actor, whose name was Basil Kindred.
"And Minnie is very pretty, you say."
"Very pretty, but with such strange ways, Dan, as I have told you
before."
"Yes," said Dan, looking earnestly at Joshua.
"Sometimes like a woman, which she is not; sometimes like a little
child, which she is not. Yet for all she is so strange, one can't help
loving her, and pitying her."
"Is she at all like Ellen, Jo?"
"Minnie is not like Ellen," said Joshua, considering. "Ellen's face is
calm and peaceful; Minnie's is grander, larger. Minnie is the kind of
girl for a heroine, and Ellen is not, I think. She is too peaceful.
Say that Ellen is like a lake, Minnie is like the sea."
A quiet smile passed over Dan's lips, yet a regretful one, too.
"You don't know Ellen, Jo," he said "Give me the lake."
"And me the sea," said Joshua, not meaning it at all with reference to
the girls, but literally, with reference to his choice of a
profession.
From the first part of this conversation it will be gathered that
Susan Taylor had left her home, and had chosen to keep her residence a
secret from her family. She was not to blame for it; for she had been
most unhappy in the family mansion of the Taylors. Although she earned
her own living, and paid for her board and lodging, her father, a
drunken, lazy mechanic, had lately been pestering her for small loans,
to be spent, of course, at the public-house. These she could not
afford to give him; and when he found that she would not assist him,
he quarrelled with her. He twitted her about her ungainly person,
jeered at her strange mannerisms, pricked her with domestic pins and
needles, and made her life so miserable, that she was glad when the
culminating quarrel gave her the opportunity to run away.
She had never had a friend. Nearly every girl has a girl-companion
with whom she exchanges little confidences, and whom she consults as
to the fashion of the new bonnet, and how it is to be trimmed, the
pattern of the new dress, and how many flounces it is to have, the
color of the new piece of ribbon, and how it should be worn, the
personal appearance and intentions of the last new admirer, and how he
is to be treated. Susan never had such a companion; worse than that,
she never had a sweetheart. She had grown to woman's estate without
ever having experienced the pleasures of courtship, either as a child
or as a woman. No little boy had taken a liking to her when she was a
little girl; and when she grew to be a young woman, no young man had
cast a favorable eye upon her. Sooth to say, there was nothing
singular in the circumstance; for she was as little attractive
externally, as a young woman well could be.
If it were necessary to define and describe her with brevity, a happy
definition and description might be given in two simple words--Joints
and Knobs. Susan Taylor was all Joints and Knobs, from the crown of
her head to the soles of her feet. There was not a straight line about
her; every square inch of her frame was broken by a joint or
intersected by a knob. Her face did not contain one perfect feature.
Bones, with sharp rugged outlines, asserted themselves in her cheeks,
in her chin, in her nose (most aggressively there), and in the arches
of her eyes. Her shoulders were suggestive of nothing but
salt-cellars; her fingers were covered with knuckles; her arms were
all elbows; and her knees, as she walked, forced themselves into
notice with offensive demonstrativeness. There was nothing round and
soft about her. Every part of her was suggestive of Bone; she was so
replete with mysterious and complicated angles that she might be said
to resemble a mathematical torture. Her angular proportions, broken
here by a joint, or intersected there by a knob, did not agree with
one another. As not one of them would accept a subordinate position,
they were necessarily on the very worst of terms: like a regiment in
which every soldier insisted on being colonel, and struggled for the
position. The result was Anatomical Confusion.
Cupid is popularly represented to be a mischievous young imp, who
delights in tying persons together who are not in the least suited to
each other, and as being so reckless and indiscriminate in the use of
the metaphorical arrow, which he is everlastingly fixing to that
metaphorical bow with such malicious nicety, that the right man seldom
finds himself in the right place, and the right woman is similarly
unfortunate. As a consequence of this eccentric and inhuman conduct,
long men and short women and long women and short men, get absurdly
matched, and the mental disparity is often found to be no less than
the disparity in limb and bulk. But never, surely, did that tricksy
youngster (who is so convenient to writers as a reference, and in
various other ways, that they cannot be sufficiently grateful for his
mythological existence) play a stranger prank than when he made Susan
Taylor and Basil Kindred acquainted with each other. The evening on
which Susan, for the first time, saw Basil Kindred act the Ghost
scenes in "Hamlet," marked an era in her life not less important than
that sad era which was commenced by her letting her brother Daniel
fall from her arms out of the window on to the cruel stones. For if
ever woman fell in love (which is so violently suggestive that it may
well be doubted) with man, Susan Taylor, on that evening, fell in love
with Basil Kindred.
But Susan was not the woman to exhibit her passion in words. In
another fashion she did exhibit it: in the best fashion that devotion
Can show itself--in deeds. She was not a cunning woman, nor a wise one
either. Being from the very infirmities of her nature a kind of social
outcast, she was not likely to consider what the world would say of
any action of hers. And here was an anomaly; she was neither foolish
enough nor wise enough to consider what the world would say; yet had
she considered that her conduct was open to censure, she would not
have swerved a hair's breadth because of the world's opinion; and this
very independence proceeded not from a hardened nature, but from a
nature utterly simple. So she did what a very considerable majority of
the busy bees in this busy world would consider either a very foolish
thing or some thing worse. When she left her home she rented a room in
the miserable house in which Basil Kindred and his daughter resided.
She did this because she loved him; and yet looking for no return of
her passion, she did it so that she might make herself useful to him
and to Minnie. The living she earned as a dressmaker was a poor and a
scanty one enough; but she managed, out of her small earnings, to
contribute some little towards the comfort of the couple whose
acquaintance she had so strangely made.
Joshua was always certain of a warm welcome from Basil and Minnie; an
affectionate intimacy had sprung up between them, and he had spent
many a pleasant hour in their company. But in the first flush of their
intimacy he had been sorely puzzled by Basil Kindred's strange ways
and oft-times stranger remarks; the wandering restlessness of his
eyes, and the no less wandering nature of his speech, engendered grave
doubts whether he was quite right in his mind. And as Joshua looked
from Basil's fine mobile face to that of his daughter, so like her
father's in all its grand and beautiful outlines, it distressed him to
think that her intellect also might be tainted with her father's
disease. It might not be; it might be merely the want of proper moral
training that induced her to be so strangely incoherent, so reckless
and defiant, and yet at the same time so singularly tender in her
conduct. With Minnie every thing was right or wrong according to the
way in which it affected herself. She recognized no general law as
guiding such and such a principle or sentiment. There was this
similarity and this difference between Minnie and Susan: they both
ignored the world's opinion and the world's judgment of their actions.
But where Susan would be meek, Minnie would be defiant; where Susan
would offend through ignorance, Minnie would offend consciously, and
be at the same time ready to justify herself and argue the point;
which latter she would do, of course, only from her point of view.
Supposing that it could be reduced to weights and measures, Minnie
would have been content to place herself and her affections on one
side of the scale, and all the world on the other, with the positive
conviction that she would tip the scale.
She was very affectionate and docile to Joshua; she looked up to him
with a kind of adoration, and this tacit acknowledgment of his
superiority was pleasing to his vanity. He was her hero, and she
worshipped him, and showed that she did so; and he, too, dangerously
regarding her as a child, received her worship, and was gratified by
it. And so she drifted.
Now as he entered the room, Minnie sprang towards him with a joyous
exclamation, and taking his hand, held it tightly clasped in hers as
she led him to a seat. The room was not so bare of furniture as it was
when he first saw it. He looked round for Basil Kindred.
"Father is not at home, Joshua," said Minnie. "He will be in soon, I
dare say." She pushed him softly into a chair, and sat on the ground
at his feet. "I am so glad you have come!"
"But I don't think I have time to stay."
"You mustn't go; you mustn't go," said Minnie, drawing his arm round
her neck. "I shall be so lonely if you do."
"But you were alone before I came in, Minnie."
"Yes," returned Minnie; "but I did not feel lonely then. I shall now,
if you go away."
"Then I will stop for a little while," said Joshua, humoring her.
"Always good!" said Minnie gratefully, resting her lips upon her hand,
"always good!"
"Why did you not feel lonely before I came, Minnie?"
"I was thinking."
"Of what?"
"Of long, long ago, when father was different to what he is now."
"It could not have been so long, long ago, little Minnie,"--here came
a little caressing action from the child,--"you are only--how old?"
"Fourteen."
"And fourteen years ago is not so long, long ago, little Minnie."
Minnie repeated her caressing action.
"To you it isn't perhaps, but it is to me. It seems almost," she said,
placing Joshua's hand upon her eyes, and closing them, "as if I had
nothing to do with it. Yet I must have had; for mother was mixed up
with what I was thinking.
"But I shall think of something else now that you are here," she said
presently. "I am going to listen."
With the hand that was free she took something from her pocket, and
placing it to her ear, bent her head closer to the ground. She was so
long in that attitude of watchful silence, that Joshua cried "Minnie"
to arouse her.
"Hush!" she said; "you must not interrupt me. I am listening. I can
almost hear it speak."
"Hear what speak?" asked Joshua, wondering.
Minnie directed his fingers to her ear, and he felt something smooth
and cold.
"It is a shell," she said softly, "and I am listening to the sea."
"Ah," said Joshua in a voice as soft as hers, "that is because I am
going to be a sailor."
"For that reason. Yes. Call me little Minnie."
"Little Minnie!" said Joshua tenderly; for Minnie's voice and manner
were very winsome, and he could not help thinking how quaintly pretty
her fancy was.
"Little Minnie, little Minnie!" whispered Minnie in so soft a tone
that Joshua could scarcely hear it,--"little Minnie, little Minnie!
The sea is singing it. How kind the sea is! and how soft and gentle I
should like to go to sleep like this."
"Does the shell sing any thing else, little Minnie?"
"Listen! Ah, but you cannot hear! It is singing, 'Little Minnie,
little Minnie, Joshua is going to be a sailor. Little Minnie, little
Minnie, would you like to go with him?'"
"And you answer?"
"Yes, yes, yes! I should like to go with him, and hear the sea always
singing like this. I should like to go with him because"--But here
Minnie stopped.
"Because what?"
"Because nothing," said Minnie, taking the shell from her ear. "Now
the sea is gone, and the singing is gone, and we are waiting at home
for father."
"What for, Minnie? What am I waiting at home for father for?"
"To see him of course," answered Minnie.
"And to wish him and you good-by," said Joshua.
"Good-by!" echoed the child, with a sudden look of distress in her
large gray eyes. "So soon!"
"Yes. My ship sails to-morrow."
"And this is the last day we shall see you," she said, her tears
falling upon his hand.
"The last day for a little while, little Minnie," he said, striving to
speak cheerfully.
"For how long?" asked the child, bending her head, so that her fair
hair fell over her face.
"For a year, perhaps, Minnie," he answered.
"For a long, long year," she said sorrowfully. "You will not do as
mother did, will you?"
"How was that?"
"She went away from us one afternoon, and was to come back at night.
And it rained--oh, so dreadfully!--that night. We were lodging under
some trees, father, mother, and I. Father was ill--very ill, but not
with the same kind of illness that he has now sometimes. He had a
fever. And mother went into the town to get something for us to
eat--as you did that night when the bad boys threw a stone at father,
and you brought him home. When father woke we went in search of her.
But I never remember seeing mother again. And you are going away, and
perhaps I shall never see you again."
"What does the shell say, Minnie?"
Minnie placed the shell to her ear.
"I cannot make out any thing," she said in a voice of pain. "It isn't
singing now; it is moaning and sighing."
He took the shell and listened.
"It will speak to me, because I am a sailor."
"And it says?" asked Minnie anxiously.
"And it says--no, it sings--'Little Minnie, little Minnie, Joshua is
going to sea, and Joshua will come back, please God, in a year, with
beautiful shells and wonderful stories for you and all his friends.
So, little Minnie, little Minnie, look happy; for there is nothing to
be sorrowful at.'"
"Ah!" said Minnie in less sorrowful tones, "if I was a woman and loved
anybody very much, I would not let him go away by himself."
"Why, what would you do?"
"I would follow him." And she pulled Joshua's head down to hers, and
whispered, "I should like to go to sea with you."
"Would you indeed, miss!"
"Yes; for I love you, oh, so much!" whispered the child innocently in
the same low tones. "But you wouldn't let me go, would you?"
"I should think not. A nice sailor you would make; a weak little thing
like you!"
The girl sprang from her crouching attitude, and stood upright. As she
did so, expressing in her action what her meaning was, Joshua noticed
for the first time that she was growing to be large-limbed and strong.
She tossed her hair from her face, and said,--
"Father says I shall be a tall woman."
"Well?"
"Well," she repeated half-proudly and half-bashfully. "I should not
make such a bad sailor, after all." And then with a motion thoroughly
childlike, she knelt on the ground before him; and placing her elbows
on his knees, rested her chin in her upturned palms, and looked
steadily into his face. "If I was a woman," she said slowly and
earnestly, "I would go with you, even if you would not let me."
"How would you manage that?"
"I would follow you secretly."
"You must not say so," said Joshua reprovingly; "it would be very,
very wrong."
"To follow any one you loved?" questioned the child, shaking her head
at the same time to denote that she had no doubt whether it would be
right or wrong. "Wrong to wish to be with any one you loved? It
would be wrong not to wish it. But"--and she looked round, as if
fearful, although they were alone, lest her resolution should become
known--"nobody should know; I would not tell a living soul."
Joshua was silent, puzzled at Minnie's earnestness. Minnie, with the
shell at her ear, soon broke the silence, however.
"Has your friend--the boy you have told me about"--
"Dan?"
"Yes, Dan. Has Dan got a shell?"
"No. I don't suppose he ever thought of it."
"And yet he loves you very much, and a shell is the only thing that
can bring the sea to him."
"Who gave you the shell, Minnie?"
"No one."
"How did you get it, then?"
"I took it from a stall."
"O Minnie!" exclaimed Joshua, grieved and shocked; "that was very
wicked."
"I know it was," said Minnie simply; "but I did it for you. Two days
afterwards, when father had money given to him, I asked him for some,
and he gave it me. I went to the stall where the shells were, and
asked the man how much each they were. 'A penny,' he said. I gave him
two pence and ran away. That was good, wasn't it?"
Joshua shook his head.
"It was very wicked to steal the shell; and I don't think you made up
for it by paying double when you got the money."
But Minnie set her teeth close, and said between them, "It was wicked
at first, but it wasn't wicked afterwards, was it, shell?"--She
listened with a coaxing air to the shell's reply.--"The shell says it
wasn't'. Besides, I did it for you; Dan wouldn't have done it."
"No, that he wouldn't."
"Shows he doesn't love you as much as I do," muttered Minnie with
jealous intonation. "If he did, he would have thought of a shell, and
would have got it somehow. If he did, he would go with you, and would
never, never leave you!"
"Now, Minnie, listen to me."
"I am listening, Joshua." She would have taken his hand; but he put it
behind his back, and motioned her to be still. She knew by his voice
that something unpleasant was coming, and she set her teeth close.
"You know that it is wrong to steal, and you stole the shell."
"I did it for you," she said doggedly. "That does not make it right,
Minnie. I want you to give me a promise."
"I will promise you any thing but one thing," she said.
"What is that."
"Never mind. You would never guess, so you will never ask me. What am
I to promise?"
"That you will never steal any thing again."
"Do you think I ever stole any thing but the shell, then?" she asked,
with an air that would have been stern in its pride if she had not
been a child.
It was on the tip of Joshua's tongue to say, "I don't know what to
think;" but her manner of putting the question gave the answer to it.
"No," he said instead, "I don't think you ever did, Minnie."
Her head was stubbornly bent; and she had enough to do to keep back
her tears. She would not have succeeded had his answer been different.
"No, I never stole any thing else. Stole is the proper word, I know;
but it is a nasty one, and makes me ashamed."
"That is your punishment, Minnie," said Joshua, wondering at himself
for his tenaciousness.
"That is my punishment, then," said Minnie not less doggedly than
before; "but I did it for you"--nothing would drive her from that
stand-point--"and I promise you, Joshua, that I will never steal any
thing again--never, never!"
He gave her his hand, and she took it and caressed it.
"And now, Minnie, about Dan," he said. "You must not say or think any
thing ill of him. He is the best-hearted and the dearest friend in the
world; and I cannot tell you how much I love him, or how much he loves
me."
"Why doesn't he go to sea with you, then?"
Joshua looked at her reproachfully.
"Your memory is not good, Minnie. He is lame, as I told you."
"I forgot. He can't go because he is lame. Would he go if his legs
were sound?"
"I think he would."
"Don't think," Minnie said, with a sly look at him; "be sure."
"I am sure he would then."
"Caught!" cried Minnie, clapping her hands, the sly look, in which
there was simplicity, changing to a cunning one, in which there was
craft. "Caught, caught, caught!"
"I should like to know how," said Joshua. "How ridiculous of you,
Minnie, to cry 'Caught!' as if I was a fox!"
"No, I am the fox," she cried, shaking her hair over her face with
enchanting grace. "I am in hiding--just peeping round the corner." She
made an opening in her thick hair, and flashed a look at him; a look
that was saucy, and cunning, and charming, and wilful, all at once.
"Am I a good fox?"
"You are a goose. Tell me how I am caught."
"Listen, then," throwing her hair back, and becoming logical. "Dan
loves you as well as any man or woman could love another, you said."
"Did I say as well? I thought I said better. I meant better."
"That's no matter. Dan loves you,"--she held up her left hand, and
checked off the items on her fingers--"that is one finger. And Dan
would go to sea with you; and it would be right, because he loves
you--that is two fingers. But Dan can't go because he is lame--that is
three fingers. Now I love you, and I am not lame--that is four
fingers. And it would not be wrong in me to follow you--and that is my
thumb, the largest reason of all. So you are caught, caught, caught,
you see."
"I do not see," said Joshua in a very decided voice. "Dan is a boy,
and you are a girl; and what is right for a boy to do is often wrong
for a girl. I do not see that I am caught."
But Minnie had relinquished the argument. She was satisfied that she
was right.
"And you would really be very angry with me if I did it?" she asked.
"I should be very angry with you now, Minnie, if it were not that you
were a stupid little girl, just a trifle too fond of talking nonsense.
Such nonsense, too! Why, there's Ellen, Dan's sister, _she_ wouldn't
talk so."
All the brightness went out of Minnie's face, and a dark cloud was
there instead.
Joshua noticed it with surprise. He took her hand gently; but she
snatched it away.
"Ellen would not behave like that," he said; "she is too mild and
gentle." There came into his mind what he had said to Dan of the two
girls--that Ellen was like a lake, and Minnie like the sea; and he
thought how true it was. "It would do you good to know her."
"I don't want to know her," said Minnie sullenly, "and I don't want to
be done good to."
"I didn't think you would be cross-tempered on my last day at home,"
said Joshua in a grave and gentle voice. He paused, as if expecting
her to speak; but she remained silent. "Ah, well," he said, rising, "I
shall go and see if I can find your father."
She jumped up and walked with him to the door.
"Say that you are not angry with me," she said in a voice of the
softest pleading, raising her face to his.
He would have made a different reply, but he saw that her face was
covered with tears.
"Angry with you!" he said kindly. "Who could be angry with you for
long, little Minnie?"
She smiled gratefully and thoughtfully as he kissed her; and when he
had gone, and she had heard his last footstep, she returned to her old
place upon the floor, and crouching down, placed the shell to her ear,
and listened to the singing of the sea.