A few miles distant from the city was a tasteful brown cottage, having a
piazza on all sides, and surrounded by a carefully trained hedge. This
was the summer retreat of P. H. Gregory, a New York merchant.
It was a warm day in June. Two children, a boy and girl, respectively of
six and eight years, were playing in the yard, when they espied through
the hedge an old man, with hair and whiskers white as the driven snow,
accompanied by a young girl, toiling, apparently with great difficulty,
towards the house, notwithstanding the assistance he derived from a
stout cane, on which he leaned heavily.
Attracted by the sight, they ran into the house, calling on their mother
to look out and see. She had scarcely done so, when, to her surprise, she
found that the pair had entered the gate, and were coming towards the
house.
“Is Mrs. Gregory within?” asked the old man of the servant who answered
the bell.
Mrs. Gregory anticipated the reply by coming forward.
“Poor old man!” said she, compassionately (for the attire which Armstrong
had donned for the occasion was singularly threadbare, and evinced the
lowest depth of destitution),—“poor old man! what can I do for you?”
“I have brought my grand-daughter with me, good lady,” said the old man,
feebly, “in answer to your advertisement. She’s a good girl, and I wish
I could keep her with me; but the times are hard, and it costs a sight to
live; and so I’ve been thinking the best thing I could do is to get her a
good place, and a good mistress, as I am sure you would be to her, madam.”
Mrs. Gregory’s sympathies were enlisted in the child’s favor by this
artful address, as well as by her own modest and downcast look. She was
not aware, however, that not a little of her confusion arose from the
dissimulation in which she was compelled to take a part.
“What is your grand-daughter’s name?” asked Mrs. Gregory. “She seems
young.”
“She is only twelve; but she’s capable,—very capable. When her poor
grandmother was sick for nearly a year before she died,”—and Armstrong
wiped his eyes with his ragged sleeve at the sorrowful thought,—“Helen
took the whole care of her and of me; and no one could find a better
nurse.”
“It must have been a great care to you, Helen,” said Mrs. Gregory, kindly.
Helen had been so much taken aback by the last fabrication respecting a
grandmother of whom she had never heard, that she was barely able to say,
in a low voice,—
“Yes, ma’am.”
“But you will never regret it, my child,” said the lady. “God will not
fail to reward good children. So your name is Helen?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I like the name. I had a child of that name once. Were she living, she
would be about your age. But”—and the lady sighed deeply—“she disappeared
one day, and we never could find any trace of her.”
Had Mrs. Gregory been an attentive observer, she would have seen a gleam
of intelligence pass over the old man’s face at this moment; but she was
too much absorbed by her sad thoughts.
“I think,” said she, after a pause, “that I will engage you, Helen,
although you are rather young for my purpose. When can you come?”
“She is ready now,” said her grandfather. “I can send her the rest of her
clothes.”
“Very well. Then you may come in, and take off your things.”
“Come, Helen, and give a parting kiss to your poor old grandfather. He
will be very lonely without you, my dear child; but he knows that he has
left you with a kind lady, who will care for you.”
Helen advanced to her grandfather’s embrace with very little alacrity. As
he pressed his lips lightly to her cheek, he whispered, so that she only
could hear,—
“Keep your eyes open;” and then added aloud, “Be a good girl, Helen, and
mind the kind lady who has engaged you, in all respects. Remember all
the lessons I have taught you; and do not forget,” he continued, with a
meaning look, “what I told you before I came away.”
Helen replied faintly in the affirmative. Mrs. Gregory attributed her
evident embarrassment to the fact that she was about to leave her only
relative to go among strangers; and she resolved in her heart to lighten,
as well as she might, the sorrow of the child.
“I will bring your clothes to-morrow, my dear grand-daughter,” said
Armstrong, as he rose slowly from his chair, and, resuming his cane,
walked feebly from the house.
As soon, however, as he was fully out of sight, he straightened his bowed
form, and walked rapidly onward till overtaken by a passing omnibus,
which he entered, and was soon carried back to the city.