"_The plain, unvarnished tale of my whole course of love._"
Shakespeare
"What a handsome girl that is who always waits on us!" Francesca had
once said to Clara Russell, as they came out of Hyacinth's with some
dainty laces in their hands.
"Very," Clara had answered.
The handsome girl was Sallie.
At another time Francesca, admiring some particular specimen of the
pomps and vanities with which the store was crowded, was about carrying
it away, but first experimented as to its fit.
"O dear!" she cried, in dismay, "it is too short, and"--rummaging
through the box--"there is not another like it, and it is the only one I
want."
"How provoking!" sympathized Clara.
"I could very easily alter that," said Sallie, who was behind the
counter; "I make these up for the shop, and I'll be glad to fix this for
you, if you like it so much."
"Thanks. You are very kind. Can you send it up to-morrow?"
"This evening, if you wish it."
"Very good; I shall be your debtor."
"Well!" exclaimed Clara, as they turned away, this is the first time in
all my shopping I ever found a girl ready to put herself out to serve
one. They usually act as if they were conferring the most overwhelming
favor by condescending to wait upon you at all."
"Why, Clara, I'm sure I always find them civil."
"I know they seem devoted to you. I wonder why. Oh!"--laughing and
looking at her friend with honest admiration,--"it must be because you
are so pretty."
"Excellent,--how discerning you are!" smiled Francesca, in return.
If Clara had had a little more discernment, she would have discovered
that what wrought this miracle was a friendly courtesy, that never
failed to either equal or subordinate.
Six weeks after the Seventh had marched out of New York, Francesca,
sitting in her aunt's room, was roused from evidently painful thought by
the entrance of a servant, who announced, "If you please, a young woman
to see you."
"Name?"
"She gave none, miss."
"Send her up."
Sallie came in. "Bird of Paradise" Francesca had called her more than
once, she was so dashing and handsome; but the title would scarcely fit
now, for she looked poor, and sad, and woefully dispirited.
"Ah, Miss Sallie, is it you? Good morning."
"Good morning, Miss Ercildoune." She stood, and looked as though she had
something important to say. Presently Francesca had drawn it from
her,--a little story of her own sorrows and troubles.
"The reason I have come to you, Miss Ercildoune, when you are so nearly
a stranger, is because you have always been so kind and pleasant to me
when I waited on you at the store, and I thought you'd anyway listen to
what I have to say."
"Speak on, Sallie."
"I've been at Hyacinth's now, over four years, ever since I left school.
It's a good place, and they paid me well, but I had to keep two people
out of it, my little brother Frank and myself; Frank and I are orphans.
And I'm very fond of dress; I may as well confess that at once. So the
consequence is, I haven't saved a cent against a rainy day. Well,"
blushing scarlet, "I had a lover,--the best heart that ever beat,--but I
liked to flirt, and plague him a little, and make him jealous; and at
last he got dreadfully so about a young gentleman,--a Mr. Snipe, who was
very attentive to me,--and talked to me about it in a way I didn't
like. That made me worse. I don't know what possessed me; but after that
I went out with Mr. Snipe a great deal more, to the theatre and the
like, and let him spend his money on me, and get things for me, as
freely as he chose. I didn't mean any harm, indeed I didn't,--but I
liked to go about and have a good time; and then it made Jim show how
much he cared for me, which, you see, was a great thing to me; and so
this went on for a while, till Jim gave me a real lecture, and I got
angry and wouldn't listen to anything he had to say, and sent him away
in a huff"--here she choked--"to fight; to the war; and O dear! O dear!"
breaking down utterly, and hiding her face in her shawl, "he'll be
killed,--I know he will; and oh! what shall I do? My heart will break, I
am sure."
Francesca came and stood by her side, put her hand gently on her
shoulder, and stroked her beautiful hair. "Poor girl!" she said, softly,
"poor girl!" and then, so low that even Sallie could not hear, "You
suffer, too: do we all suffer, then?"
Presently Sallie looked up, and continued: "Up to that time, Mr. Snipe
hadn't said anything to me, except that he admired me very much, and
that I was pretty, too pretty to work so hard, and that I ought to live
like a lady, and a good deal more of that kind of talk that I was silly
enough to listen to; but when he found Jim was gone, first, he made fun
of him for 'being such a great fool as to go and be shot at for
nothing,' and then he--O Miss Ercildoune, I can't tell you what he
said; it makes me choke just to think of it. How dared he? what had I
done that he should believe me such a thing as that? I don't know what
words I used when I did find them, and I don't care, but they must have
stung. I can't tell you how he looked, but it was dreadful; and he said,
'I'll bring down that proud spirit of yours yet, my lady. I'm not
through with you,--don't think it,--not by a good deal'; and then he
made me a fine bow, and laughed, and went out of the room.
"The next day Mr. Dodd--that's one of our firm--gave me a week's notice
to quit: 'work was slack,' he said, 'and they didn't want so many
girls.' But I'm just as sure as sure can be that Mr. Snipe's at the
bottom of it, for I've been at the store, as I told you, four years and
more, and they always reckoned me one of their best hands, and Mr. Dodd
and Mr. Snipe are great friends. Since then I've done nothing but try to
get work. I must have been into a thousand stores, but it's true work is
slack; there's not a thing been doing since the war commenced, and I
can't get any place. I've been to Miss Russell and some of the ladies
who used to come to the store, to see if they'd give me some fine
sewing; but they hadn't any for me, and I don't know what in the world
to do, for I understand nothing very well but to sew, and to stand in a
store. I've spent all my money, what little I had, and--and--I've even
sold some of my clothes, and I can't go on this way much longer. I
haven't a relative in the world; nor a home, except in a boarding-house;
and the girls I know all treat me cool, as though I had done something
bad, because I've lost my place, I suppose, and am poor.
"All along, at times, Mr. Snipe has been sending me things,--bouquets,
and baskets of fruit, and sometimes a note, and, though I won't speak to
him when I meet him on the street, he always smiles and bows as if he
were intimate; and last night, when I was coming home, tired enough from
my long search, he passed me and said, with such a look, 'You've gone
down a peg or two, haven't you, Sallie? Come, I guess we'll be friends
again before long.' You think it's queer I'm telling you all this. I
can't help it; there's something about you that draws it all out of me.
I came to ask you for work, and here I've been talking all this while
about myself. You must excuse me; I don't think I would have said so
much, if you hadn't looked so kind and so interested"; and so she
had,--kind as kind could be, and interested as though the girl who
talked had been her own sister.
"I am glad you came, Sallie, and glad that you told me all this, if it
has been any relief to you. You may be sure I will do what I can for
you, but I am afraid that will not be a great deal, here; for I am a
stranger in New York, and know very few people. Perhaps--Would you go
away from here?"
"Would I?--O wouldn't I? and be glad of the chance. I'd give anything to
go where I couldn't get sight or sound of that horrid Snipe. Can't I go
with you, Miss Ercildoune?"
"I have no counter behind which to station you," said Francesca,
smiling.
"No, I know,--of course; but"--looking at the daintily arrayed
figure--"you have plenty of elegant things to make, and I can do pretty
much anything with my needle, if you'd like to trust me with some work.
And then--I'm ashamed to ask so much of you, but a few words from you to
your friends, I'm sure, would send me all that I could do, and more."
"You think so?" Miss Ercildoune inquired, with a curious intonation to
her voice, and the strangest expression darkening her face. "Very well,
it shall be tried."
Sallie was nonplussed by the tone and look, but she comprehended the
closing words fully and with delight. "You will take me with you," she
cried. "O, how good, how kind you are! how shall I ever be able to thank
you?"
"Don't thank me at all," said Miss Ercildoune, "at least not now. Wait
till I have done something to deserve your gratitude."
But Sallie was not to be silenced in any such fashion, and said her say
with warmth and meaning; then, after some further talk about time and
plans, went away carrying a bit of work which Miss Ercildoune had found,
or made, for her, and for which she had paid in advance.
"God bless her!" thought Sallie; "how nice and how thoughtful she is!
Most ladies, if they'd done anything for me, would have given me some
money and made a beggar of me, and I should have felt as mean as
dish-water. But now"--she patted her little bundle and walked down the
street, elated and happy.
Francesca watched her out of the door with eyes that presently filled
with tears. "Poor girl!" she whispered; "poor Sallie! her lover has gone
to the wars with a shadow between them. Ah, that must not be; I must try
to bring them together again, if he loves her dearly and truly. He might
die,"--she shuddered at that,--"die, as other men die, in the heat and
flame of battle. My God! my God! how shall I bear it? Dead! and without
a word! Gone, and he will never know how well I love him! O Willie,
Willie! my life, my love, my darling, come back, come back to me."
Vain cry!--he cannot hear. Vain lifting of an agonized face, beautiful
in its agony!--he cannot see. Vain stretching forth of longing hands and
empty arms!--he is not there to take them to his embrace. Carry thy
burden as others have carried it before thee, and learn what multitudes,
in times past and in time present, have learned,--the lesson of
endurance when happiness is denied, and of patience and silence when joy
has been withheld. Go thou thy way, sorrowful and suffering soul, alone;
and if thy own heart bleeds, strive thou to soothe its pangs, by
medicining the wounds and healing the hurts of another.
A few days thereafter, when Miss Ercildoune went over to Philadelphia,
Sallie and Frank bore her company. She had become as thoroughly
interested in them as though she had known and cared for them for a long
while; and as she was one who was incapable of doing in an imperfect or
partial way aught she attempted, and whose friendship never stopped
short with pleasant sounding words, this interest had already bloomed
beautifully, and was fast ripening into solid fruit.
She had written in advance to desire that certain preparations should be
made for her _protégés_,--preparations which had been faithfully
attended to; and thus, reaching a strange city, they felt themselves not
strangers, since they had a home ready to receive them, and this
excellent friend by their side.
The home consisted of two rooms, neat, cheerful, high up,--"the airier
and healthier for that," as Sallie decided when she saw them.
"I believe everything is in order," said the good-natured-looking old
lady, the mistress of the establishment. "My lodgers are all gentlemen
who take their meals out, and I shall be glad of some company. Any one
whom Friend Comstock recommends will be all right, I know."
As Mrs. Healey's style of designation indicated, Friend Comstock was a
Quakeress, well known, greatly esteemed, an old friend of Miss
Ercildoune, and of Miss Ercildoune's father. She it was to whom
Francesca had written, and who had found this domicile for the
wanderers, and who at the outset furnished Sallie with an abundance of
fine and dainty sewing. Indeed, without giving the matter special
thought, she was surprised to discover that, with one or two exceptions,
the people Miss Ercildoune sent her were of the peaceful and quiet
sect. This bird of brilliant plumage seemed ill assorted with the
sober-hued flock.
She found in this same bird a helper in more ways than one. It was not
alone that she gave her employment and paid her well, nor that she sent
her others able and willing to do the same. She found Frankie a good
school, and saw him properly installed. She never came to them
empty-handed; through the long, hot summer-time she brought them fruit
and flowers from her home out of town; and when she came not herself, if
the carriage was in the city it stopped with these same delightful
burdens. Sallie declared her an angel, and Frank, with his mouth stuffed
full, stood ready to echo the assertion.
So the heated term wore away,--before it ended, telling heavily on
Sallie. Her anxiety about Jim, her close confinement and constant work,
the fever everywhere in the spiritual air through that first terrible
summer of the war, bore her down.
"You need rest," said Miss Ercildoune to her one day, looking at her
with kindly solicitude,--"rest, and change, and fresh air, and freedom
from care. I can't give you the last, but I can the first if you will
accept them. You need some country living."
"O Miss Ercildoune, will you let me do your work at your own home? I
know it would do me good just to be under the same roof with you, and
then I should have all the things you speak of combined and another one
added. If you only will!"
This was not the plan Francesca had proposed to herself. She had
intended sending Sallie away to some pleasant country or seaside place,
till she was refreshed and ready to come to her work once more. Sallie
did not know what to make of the expression of the face that watched
her, nor of the exclamation, "Why not? let me try her." But she had not
long to consider, for Miss Ercildoune added, "Be it so. I will send in
for you to-morrow, and you shall stay till you are better and stronger,
or--till you please to come home,"--the last words spoken in a bitter
and sorrowful tone.
The next day Sallie found her way to the superb home of her employer.
Superb it was, in every sense. Never before had she been in such a
delightful region, never before realized how absolutely perfect breeding
sets at ease all who come within the charm of its magic
sphere,--employed, acquaintance, or friend.
There was a shadow, however, in this house,--a shadow, the premonition
of which she had seen more than once on the face of its mistress ere she
ever beheld her home; a shadow to which, for a few days, she had no
clew, but which was suddenly explained by the arrival of the master of
this beautiful habitation; a shadow from which most people would have
fled as from the breath of a pestilence, or the shade of the tomb; nay,
one from which, but a few short months before, Sallie herself would have
sped with feet from which she would have shaken the very dust of the
threshold when she was beyond its doors,--but not now. Now, as she
beheld it, she sat still to survey it, with surprise that deepened into
indignation and compassion, that many a time filled her eyes with tears,
and brought an added expression of respect to her voice when she spoke
to these people who seemed to have all the good things that this world
can offer, upon whom fortune had expended her treasures, yet--
Whatever it was, Sallie came from that home with many an old senseless
prejudice destroyed forever, with a new thought implanted in her soul,
the blossoming of which was a noxious vapor in the nostrils of some who
were compelled to inhale it, but as a sweet-smelling savor to more than
one weary wayfarer, and to that God to whom the darkness and the light
are alike, and who, we are told by His own word, is no respecter of
persons.
"Poor, dear Miss Ercildoune!" half sobbed, half scolded Sallie, as she
sat at her work, blooming and, fresh, the day after her return. "What a
tangled thread it is, to be sure," jerking at her knotty needleful.
"Well, I know what I'll do,--I'll treat her as if she was a queen born
and crowned, just so long as I have anything to do with her,--so I
will." And she did.