“Send the little girl to my room to-night, aunty, when you have made her
decent. I must see what she is fit for, and what she looks like.
Remember, she is to have good warm clothes, but no gewgawry.”
At 8 o’clock precisely, Marie came into Mr. Evans’s room with a waiter,
on which was spread the most frugal sort of a supper. Rye bread and
butter and black tea, it was his sovereign pleasure to be served with at
night.
Mrs. Evans had had time only to extemporise an amelioration in the
girl’s dress. She was at that very awkward age when a girl is not a
child or a woman. She had a heavy burden of deep-red hair, and all her
bones showed through their scant covering of flesh—and they seemed hung
on wires, and very loosely hung, too. Her eyes were a very deep blue,
but she had been somewhat “cross-eyed” from infancy, and now the defect
was much aggravated by her constant weeping. She was very timid,
shrinking from every one. What had she ever found in her lot to assure
her or give her confidence?
Poor, forlorn, ill-dressed, cross-eyed, red-haired, little one—all your
defects are so many commendations to Charles Evans. In the deep
selfishness of his benevolence he could love just such a child—one whom
others would only pity and never think of loving. And he felt a sort of
secure property in her when he saw that no one else would be likely to
care for her; but he would be very certain not to let her know that he
had any kind feelings for her. He was a scraggy limb of the law, and one
would think that all the sap of his life had been written out in deeds
and documents that brought him dollars, and that all the warmth of his
heart had been expended on the Loco Foco candidates from his ward,
district, city, county, etc., etc., during the time he had been a legal
voter, which had now reached the term of fourteen years. He had amassed
a large property, and had neither “chick nor child” to leave it to, as
his friends said, all and singular of said friends having made up their
minds that he would never marry, though he had only reached the mature
and well-judging age of thirty-five.
He liked to be thought well of, as who does not; and there was a
delicate flattery to him in the thought that Fanny Evans trusted her
child to _him_ before any of her own or her husband’s relatives. To any
one of these relatives he would have spoken of the burden of bringing up
other folks’ brats, but in his heart he thought “it was very wise, and
well-judged, and kind of Fanny, to leave the girl to me; and when Ned is
out of the way, I shall have nothing to interfere with my plans for the
child’s welfare.”
When Marie had set his waiter upon the table, she stopped and timidly
raised her cross-eyes to Mr. Evans, to see if he wanted any thing more.
“Sit down, Marie,” said he. “I wish your name was Fanny, I don’t like
fancy names and flummery.”
“I was named for my mother, Frances Maria,” said she, in the sweetest
and softest voice that Evans remembered ever to have heard. Her voice
penetrated his heart—and then her name was Fanny. He had always
cherished a cordial friendship and a true respect for her mother—and he
wished the girl to bear her mother’s name.
“I would like very much to be called Fanny,” said the child.
“Well, then, Fanny, how do you like your new home?”
“I am very glad of it,” said Fanny, and the tears filled her eyes.
“Don’t cry—there’s a good girl. Do you wish to go to school?”
“I don’t know how I would like school. My dear mother always taught me.”
“Well, you must go and see how you will get on. You will be a good girl,
I dare say. You will obey Mrs. Evans in all she asks of you. If you want
any thing, come to me. You will call me Cousin Charles when you speak to
me, and Mr. Evans when you speak of me. When you speak to Mrs. E. call
her aunty, and Mrs. Evans when you speak of her.”
And thus little Fanny began her life at her cousin’s comfortable home.
When she was told of her father’s death, she shuddered and felt
relieved. Fanny loved her mother as we always love when we have few
objects for our affections to rest on. But with the blessed faith of a
child and a Christian, she believed she was now in heaven, where she
would be perfectly happy forever, and she became strangely happy in her
new home. All her studies and occupations were so many changing joys.
From morning till night she was like some bright bird that knew not
where to bestow the fullness of its brilliant and merry carolings.
Everybody saw as the months passed away, how she wound herself around
the heart of Charles Evans; and the friends began to prophesy that he
would adopt her as his child, and make her his heir.
Mrs. Evans was a woman of great goodness, very old, and very pious. She
had now but one wish ungratified, and that was that Charles Evans and
his ward should be converted. This seemed a hard matter to accomplish as
far as Evans was concerned. He was rather a hopeless subject, for he
boasted that he was a temperance man, that he never drank any thing
stronger than black tea, that he never chewed tobacco, took laughing
gas, or went to a protracted meeting.
“Go to church with aunty enough to keep the peace,” said he to Fanny.
“You and I will not quarrel about it as long as it tends to aunty’s
comfort.”
“I would not like you to quarrel with me if I went for my own comfort,”
said Fanny.
This touch of his own independence pleased him, and he said, “Go along,
you gipsy—thistles and lilies never quarrel.”
“Red-haired girls are never lilies, though cross cousins are very sharp
thistles,” said Fanny, who, a year ago, would as soon have indulged in
repartee with her cousin as the lily he likened her to.
“You have grown very bold, if not very handsome,” he replied—and Fanny
went to church with her aunt. She was never disturbed there, however
much good Mrs. Evans prayed for such result. Some of her prayers had
been answered. She had prayed for many years that all the theatres might
be converted into chapels, and at last _one_ of them was, and she had
the pleasure of hearing the divine Mr. Kirchard preach in it, from
Sunday to Sunday, and various week days and evenings beside. He was an
earnest preacher, and it was surprising the quantities of green tea,
cayenne and cavendish that he converted into gospel. The ladies of his
church presented the pulpit with an elegant cushion and spittoon, and
never mortal minister had more use for both than the Rev. Mr. Kirchard.
The way he beat the cushion and filled the other article, when he
alarmed the sinners, _was_ plentiful.
But Fanny was never disturbed with the powerful preaching of the
reverend gentleman. Like a man who tends a saw-mill half the time, and
sleeps soundly when relieved by his companion who tends it the other
half, so Fanny was always very peaceful in church, if she was not
sleepy. I believe she had a conscience against sleeping, though what she
kept awake for, perhaps she was not herself aware. But it was very
exemplary of her, and very gratifying to good Mrs. Evans.