AS IT IS NOW
All this happened years ago, some ten or twelve, more or less, and
there have been many changes in that time.
In front of the iron railing where Lady Jane clung on that cold
Christmas eve, peering into the warmth and light of the Orphans’
Home, there is now a beautiful little park, with magnolias, oaks,
fragrant white jasmine, and pink flowering crape-myrtle. The grass
is green, and the trees make shadows on the pretty little pond, the
tiled bridge and shelled walks, the cactus and palmetto. Flowers bloom
there luxuriantly, the birds sing merrily, and it is a spot beloved of
children. Always their joyous laugh can be heard mingled with the songs
of birds and the distant hum of many little voices in the Orphans’ Home
a few paces away.
In the center of that square on a green mound, bordered with flowers,
stands a marble pedestal, and on that pedestal is a statue. It is the
figure of a woman, seated and holding a little orphan to her heart.
The woman has a plain, homely face, the thin hair is combed back
austerely from the broad forehead, the eyes are deep-set, the features
coarse, the mouth wide. She is no high-born dame of delicate mold, but
a woman of the people—untaught, honest, simple, industrious. Her plain
gown falls around her in scanty lines; over her shoulders is modestly
folded a little shawl; her hands, that caress the orphan at her side,
are large and rough with honest toil; but her face, and her whole plain
figure, is beautiful with purity and goodness. It is Margaret, the
orphans’ friend, who, though a destitute orphan herself, by her own
virtue and industry earned the wealth to found homes and asylums, to
feed and clothe the indigent, to save the wretched and forsaken, and to
merit the title of Mother to the Motherless.
And there sits her marble image, through summer’s heat and winter’s
cold, serene and gentle, under the shadow of the home she founded, and
in sound of the little voices that she loved so well; and there she
will sit when those voices are silent and those active little forms are
dust, as a monument of honest, simple virtue and charity, as well as
an enduring testimony to the nobility of the women who erected this
statue in respectful recognition of true greatness under the homely
guise of honest toil.
If one of my young readers should happen near this spot just at the
right moment on some fine evening in early spring, he or she might
chance to notice an elegant carriage drawn by two fine horses, and
driven by a sleek darky in plain livery, make the circuit of the place
and then draw up near the statue of Margaret, while its occupants, an
elderly woman of gentle and distinguished appearance, and a beautiful
young girl, study the homely, serene face of the orphans’ friend.
Presently the girl says reverently, “Dear Mother Margaret! She was a
saint, if earth ever knew one.”
“Yes; she was a noble woman, and she came from the poor and lowly.
My dear, she is an example of a great truth, which may be worthy of
consideration. It is, that virtue and purity do not disdain to dwell in
the meanest shrine, and that all the titles and wealth of earth could
not ennoble her as her own saintly character has done.”
The occupants of the carriage are Lady Jane and Mam’selle Diane
d’Hautreve.
The beautiful child is now a beautiful girl of seventeen. Her education
is finished, and she has not disappointed the expectations of her
friends. At home and abroad she is not only known as the Chetwynd
heiress, but also for her many accomplishments, as well as for her
beauty and charitableness. And her wonderful voice, which time has
enriched and strengthened, is a constant delight to those who hear
it, although it is never heard in public, save in the service of God,
or for some work of charity. The poor and the lowly, the sick and
the dying have often been carried to the very gates of heaven on its
melodious strains, and the good sisters and grateful little orphans in
Margaret’s Home count it a day long to be remembered when Lady Jane
sits down among them and sings some of the hymns that she loved so well
in those old days when she herself was a homeless little orphan.
Mr. Chetwynd still likes to spend part of the year in Paris; but he has
purchased a beautiful winter home in one of the lovely streets in the
garden district, not far from Mrs. Lanier, and Lady Jane and Mam’selle
Diane spend several months every spring in its delightful seclusion.
And here Madelon comes to bring her delicious cakes, which she now
sells to private customers instead of having a stand on the Rue
Bourbon; and Tante Modeste often rattles up in her milk cart, a little
older, a little stouter, but with the same bright face; and on the same
seat where Lady Jane used to sit is one of Marie’s little ones, instead
of one of her own. “Only think, my dear,” she says proudly, “Tiburce
has graduated, and now he is studying law with Marie’s husband, who is
rising fast in his profession.”
But among all her happy hours there are none pleasanter than those
she spends with Pepsie in the pretty cottage at Carrollton, when the
bright-faced little cripple, who seems hardly a day older, spreads out
her beautiful needlework and expatiates eloquently on the fine results
she obtains from the Paris patterns and exquisite material with which
she is constantly supplied. She is a natural little artist with the
needle, her dainty work sells readily and profitably, and she is in a
fair way to become rich. “Just think,” she says with one of her broad
smiles, “I could buy a piano now myself, if I wanted to, and perhaps I
shall, so that you can play to me when you come.”
During sunny mornings, on a certain lawn in the garden district, there
is nearly always a merry party playing tennis, while a gentle-faced
woman sits near holding a book, which she seldom reads, so interested
is she in watching a golden-haired girl and a handsome young man,
who frequently interrupt the game to point out the grave antics of a
stately blue heron, that stalks majestically about the lawn or poses
picturesquely on one leg under a glossy palm.
But we must not approach the border-land of romance. Lady Jane is no
longer a child, and Arthur Maynard is years older than the boy who gave
her the blue heron.
THE END
Transcriber’s Notes
pg 14 Changed: if you thing it’s right
to: if you think it’s right
pg 133 Changed: LADY JANE FINDS A MUSIC-TEACHFR
to: LADY JANE FINDS A MUSIC-TEACHER
pg 152 Changed: You didn’t wear a handkerchef over your ears
to: You didn’t wear a handkerchief over your ears
pg 168 Changed: annoyed at Pespie’s air of secrecy
to: annoyed at Pepsie’s air of secrecy