GOOD OUT OF EVIL.
Peacefully, on what had been her couch of pain, lay the silent form of
Jenny. The room resounded with the sobs of the mother and the brother,
and hardly less with the wailings of the stranger, who, in a few brief
hours had found and lost the truest and best of earthly friends. The
darkness gathered, and still they wept--the darkness from which Jenny
had fled to the brightness of the eternal world, where there is no
night or sorrow. There was woe in that humble abode, while heaven's
high arches rang with pæans of rejoicing that a ransomed soul had
joined the happy bands above.
There were no kind and sympathizing friends to go into that hovel and
deck the marble form in the vestments of the grave. Fanny was the first
to realize that there was something to be done: she was a stranger to
such a scene; she knew not what to do; but she told Mrs. Kent that she
would go out and obtain assistance. With hurried step she walked down
to the residence of the physician who had so gently and feelingly
ministered to the sufferer. She found the doctor at home, and informed
him of the sad event. Since his return he had told his wife and
daughter of the beautiful girl who was dying in the cottage up the
street. He called them into his library, and Fanny, with tearful eyes
and broken voice, repeated her narrative of the passing away of poor
Jenny.
The ladies promptly expressed their intention to visit the bereaved
mother, and discharge the duties the occasion required. A carriage was
called, in which the benevolent physician, his wife and daughter, and
Fanny, proceeded to the house of Mrs. Kent. They were the kindest and
tenderest of friends, and the sorrowing mother, grateful to them for
their good offices, and grateful to God for sending them to her, was
relieved of a great load of pain and anxiety. At a late hour they
departed, with the promise to come again on the following day.
Hour after hour Mrs. Kent and Fanny sat in the chamber of death,
talking about the gentle one who had passed away, and was at rest. It
was nearly morning before Fanny, worn out by excitement and fatigue,
could be prevailed upon to take the rest she needed. Mrs. Kent made a
bed for her on the kitchen floor, and she slept for a few hours. When
she awoke, her first thought was of Jenny; and all the events of the
previous day and evening passed in review before her. Her soul had been
sanctified by communion with the sainted spirit of her departed friend.
On the day before, her current of being seemed suddenly to have stopped
in its course, and then to have taken a new direction. Her thoughts,
her hopes, her aspirations had all been changed. She had resolved to be
good--so solemnly and truly resolved to be good, that she felt like a
new creature.
She prayed to the good Father, who had been revealed to her by the
dying girl; and from her prayers came a strength which was a new life
to her soul. From her strong desire to be good--to be what Jenny had
been--had grown up a new faith.
In the forenoon came the wife and daughter of the good physician again
upon the mission of mercy. They had requested the attendance of an
undertaker, and assumed the whole charge of the funeral of Jenny, which
was to take place on the third day after her death.
Fanny had hardly thought of herself since the angel of death entered
the house, though she had been weighed down by a burden of guilt that
did not embody itself in particular thoughts. In her sincere penitence,
and in her firm and sacred resolve to be good and true, she had found
only a partial peace of mind. She had not a doubt in regard to her
future course: she must return to Woodville, and submit to any
punishment which her kind friends might impose upon her. She was
willing to suffer for what she had done; she was even willing to be
sent to her uncle's in Minnesota; and this feeling of submission was
the best evidence to herself of the reality of her repentance.
She was not willing to return to Woodville till she had seen the mortal
part of Jenny laid away in its final resting-place. But Mr. Grant, who
was at Hudson with his daughters, might already have been informed of
her wicked conduct; and Mr. Long was probably still engaged in the
search for her. There was a duty she owed to her friends which her
awakened conscience would not permit her to neglect. The family would
be very anxious about her, for wayward and wilful as she had been, she
felt that they still loved her. Procuring pen and paper, she wrote a
letter to Mrs. Green, informing her that she should return home on
Friday; that she would submit to any punishment, and endeavor to be
good in the future. She sealed the note, and put it in the post-office,
with a feeling that it was all she could do at present as an atonement
for her faults. If it was not all she could do, it was an error of
judgment, not of the heart.
On Thursday the form of Jenny was placed in the coffin. It was not a
pauper's coffin; it was a black-walnut casket--plain, but
rich--selected by Mrs. Porter, the physician's lady, who could not
permit the form of one so beautiful to be enclosed in a less
appropriate receptacle. The choicest flowers lay upon her breast, and a
beautiful wreath and cross were placed upon the casket before the
funeral services commenced.
The clergyman was a friend of Dr. Porter, and he was worthy to be the
friend of so true a man. The service was solemn and touching; no word
of hope and consolation was omitted because they stood in the humble
abode of poverty and want. He spoke of the beautiful life and the happy
death of Jenny, and prayed that her parents might be comforted; that
the little brother might be blessed by her short life, and that "the
devoted young friend, who had so tenderly watched over the last hours
of the departed," might be sanctified by her holy ministrations. The
father, living or dead, wherever suffering, or wherever battling
against the foes of his country, was remembered.
Fanny wept, as all in the house wept, when the good man feelingly
delineated the lovely character of her who was still so beautiful in
her marble silence; when he recalled those tender scenes on the evening
of her death, which had been faithfully described to him by Fanny. The
casket was placed in the funeral car, and followed by two carriages,--one
of which contained Mrs. Kent, Eddy, and Fanny, and the other the family
of Dr. Porter,--to Greenwood Cemetery. Sadly the poor mother turned
away from the resting-place of her earthly treasure, and the little
_cortège_ returned to the house from which the light had gone out. The
last solemn, sacred duty had been performed; Jenny had gone, but her
pure influence was still to live on, and bless those who had never even
known her.
When the little party reached the house, Dr. Porter, after some remarks
about the solemn scenes through which they had just passed, inquired
more particularly than he had been permitted to do before into the
circumstances of the family. He promised to procure for her the money
due to her as a soldier's wife, and to obtain some light employment for
her. Mrs. Kent was very grateful to him for his kind interest in
herself, and in her lost one, assuring him that she did not ask for
charity, and was willing to work hard for a support.
"You have been a blessing to me, Fanny," said Mrs. Kent, when the
physician and his family had departed. "I am sure that God sent you
here to save me from misery and despair. What should I have done if you
had not come?"
"I think I was sent for my own sake, rather than for yours, for I know
that it has been a greater blessing to me than to you," replied Fanny.
"That can't be."
"It is so. When I told Jenny that I had been a very wicked girl, I
meant so."
"I'm sure that one who has been so kind can't be very bad," added Mrs.
Kent, rather bewildered by the confession of her benefactor. "Where did
you say you lived, Fanny?"
The wanderer had been obliged to invent a story in the beginning to
account for her absence from home, and the poor woman's heart had been
too full of gratitude to permit any doubt to enter there.
"I have deceived you, Mrs. Kent," replied Fanny, bursting into tears.
"I do not live in the city; my home is twenty-five miles up the river.
But I did not mean to deceive poor Jenny. I wanted to tell her what a
wicked deed I had done, but she would not let me."
"She was too good to think evil of any one, and especially of you, who
have been so generous to us."
"You know the paper she wrote and gave to me?"
"Yes."
"I know from that she believed I had done something very bad."
"Perhaps she did."
"She told me how to be good. The very sight of her made me feel how
wicked I was. I mean to be good."
"Then I am sure you will be."
"I shall always think of Jenny, and the anchor she gave me, when I am
tempted to do wrong. I feel that Jenny has saved me, and made me a new
being."
"I'm sure I hope so; and I am glad you came here for your own sake, as
well as for mine. But I can't believe that one who has been good to my
dear lost one can be very bad," replied Mrs. Kent, gloomily.
"I am--at least, I was; for I know I am ever so much better than I was
when I came here. I ran away from home!"
"Ran away!" exclaimed Mrs. Kent, appalled at the words.
"Yes; and I did even worse than that."
"Dear me! I hope not. I thought it was strange that a young lady like
you should have so much money; but my heart was so full that I didn't
think much about it."
"Mrs. Kent, I stole that money!" added Fanny, her face crimson with the
blush of shame.
"Mercy on me! I can't believe it."
"It is true."
"It was wrong of me to take the money," added Mrs. Kent, actually
trembling with apprehension at the thought. "I will pay it all back
some time, Fanny. I can work now. I'm sure I wouldn't have taken the
money if I had thought you did not come rightly by it."
Fanny then told the whole story, and described her feelings from the
time she had first seen Mrs. Kent in front of the house.
"I am so sorry!" said the poor woman, wringing her hands as she thought
of her own participation in the use of the stolen property. "I would
rather have been turned out of the house than be saved by such money."
"Don't cry, Mrs. Kent. I am almost sorry I told you anything about it."
"I'm glad poor Jenny didn't know it."
"So am I; but I am sure she knew how guilty I had been, though she
didn't know exactly what I had done."
"I think there is hope for you, Fanny. You must have a kind heart, or
you couldn't have done what you did for Jenny. I'm sure I feel very
grateful to you."
"Now you know me as I am, Mrs. Kent; but I tell you most solemnly, that
I mean to be good always after this. I am sorry for my wicked deeds,
and I am willing to be punished for what I have done. I shall always
bless poor Jenny for saving me from error and sin--if I am saved."
"What are you going to do, Fanny?"
"I am going back to Woodville to-morrow morning. I will give up all the
money I have, confess my fault, and let them do with me as they think
best."
"You can tell them I will pay back all the money you spent for me, just
as soon as I can."
"Mr. Grant is very rich, and he will not ask you to do that. He is very
kind, too."
"But I must do it, and I shall have no peace till it is done,"
protested the poor woman. "I'll tell you what I will do. I will give
you a note for the money."
Mrs. Kent was in earnest. She was sorely troubled by the fact that she
had even innocently received any of the stolen money. In the evening
she wrote the note, which was made payable to Mr. Grant, and insisted
that Fanny should take it. They talked of nothing but the guilt of the
runaway, though rather of the means of making reparation for the wrong,
than of the consequences of the wrong acts. Mrs. Kent was fully
convinced that Fanny was sincerely penitent; that her intercourse with
Jenny had ushered her into a new life. She was even willing to believe,
before they retired that night, that it was all for the best; that He
who brings good out of evil, would bring a blessing out of the wrong
which Fanny had done.
The next morning the wanderer bade farewell to Mrs. Kent, and took the
train for Woodville.