judicious supervision of its energetic, self-denying, and Christian matron, Mrs. Clara Markham; who forthwith orders a dozen copies of The Morning Budget, which she distributes among her friends, reserving one for a fixture on her parlor table, to edify chance visitors.
Meanwhile little Tibbie sleeps peacefully in her pine coffin in the Potters Field, and Rose sits up in her little cot, while all around her sleep, and stretches out her imploring arms to the peaceful stars that shimmer through the window.
On the evening of examination-day, Mr. Balch, as usual, takes his leave with the rest of the committee, but after seeing them safely round the corner, returns as usual, to tea with Markham in the cosy little parlor; and Markham smiles on him as only an unappropriated elderly female knows how; and Mr. Balch, what with the smile and the Hyson, considers Webster and Worcester united too meager to express his feelings, and falls back upon Markham's hand, upon which he makes an unmistakable record of his bachelor emotions.
CHAPTER VIII
"Mercy on us! you don't expect me to sleep in that room, do you?" asked Timmins of Mrs. Markham, as they stopped before the door of the room where little Tibbie died.
"I wouldn't do it for a purse of gold. I know I should see her ghost; oh, it would be awful;" and Timmins put her hands before her face, as if the ghost were looming up in the depths of the dimly-lighted entry.
"Nonsense!" said Mrs. Markham; "how superstitious you are! I am going to sleep there with you."
"Are you? Well, that alters the case," and Mrs. Markham led the way, while Timmins followed her with distended eyes.
"I really can't help thinking she will come back," said Timmins, as Mrs. Markham extinguished the light and crept into bed. "I can't seem to get over it, about her dying all alone. How very thin she was. Did you ever think she was unhappy, Mrs. Markham?"
"I don't think any thing about it, Timmins. I go to bed for the purpose of sleeping;" and turning her back upon Timmins, she buried her frilled night-cap in the pillow.
"Don't cuddie up so close, Timmins," said Mrs. Markham, about ten minutes after; "you make me insufferably hot."
"Lor', ma'am, I can't help it; I can't see nothing, and you won't speak to me, and how am I going to know that you are there?"
"Guess at it," said Markham, giving another hitch away toward the wall, and soon her sonorous breathing announced her departure to the land of dreams.
"Goodness alive! if she ain't asleep," said Timmins; "what if Tibbie should come back? Oh dear! I am sure I am sorry enough I left her so. I'll put my head under the bed-clothes. No I won't – because if it is coming, Mrs. Markham must wake up, for I shan't be good for nothing; I never spoke to a ghost in my life."
"What's – that?" she whispered hoarsely, as, by the dim light of the street-lamp on the window-glass, she saw the door open slowly, and a little figure dressed in white, glide in. "Oh Lor' – oh Mrs. Markham – (griping that lady by the arm) – it's come! Hist – there – there – oh – oh, it's coming here," whispered Timmins, as Mrs. Markham, now thoroughly roused, trembled as violently as Timmins, and both made a shuddering plunge under the bed-clothes.
"You look out, Timmins?"
"No —you, Mrs. Markham!" and both night-caps were thrust carefully from under the sides of the raised sheets.
There was the little figure – it was no illusion – flitting, gliding about the room; now here, now more distant, and now, with its pale, wan face and outstretched arms, it approaches the bed. Timmins and Markham both jump shrieking from it through the door, and fall senseless upon the entry floor.
The wicked flee when none pursueth.
Poor innocent little Rose! Waked suddenly from her somnambulistic sleep, she stands gazing about her, the unconscious avenger of little Tibbie's sufferings, and her own.
CHAPTER IX
Years pass on. Some of the children have been bound out, others Death has more mercifully indentured into his own service. Rose has grown tall. Her step is slow and feeble, and her form has lost its roundness; but her eyes are beautiful from the light within, and her wee mouth has a grieved look which makes the beholder long to clasp her to his heart. Even the ugly charity-school bonnet which Markham has just tied under her chin, can not make her look ugly.
Dolly stands waiting to take her to Difftown; she has no bundle to pack up, she has no regrets at leaving the Asylum, she has no hope for the future, for she has looked into Dolly's face with her clear calm eyes, and read her doom.
"Rose, come and kiss me, darling, before you go," said Markham. "I always feel so melancholy," she added, in an aside, to Dolly, "at parting with these dear children. It is quite impossible not to feel a motherly interest and solicitude after being with them so long. Good-by, dear Rose – don't quite forget me."
Rose thought there was little fear of that, as she followed Dolly out of the house.
"A very nice woman, that Mrs. Markham," said Dolly, as they walked to the stable where she had left her horse and chaise, "a very nice woman."
Rose made no reply.
"I dare say though, you don't like her at all, do you?"
"No," said Rose.
"Why not, I should like to know?" asked Dolly, tartly.
"I had rather not tell, if you please," answered Rose.
The civil manner in which the refusal was couched irritated Dolly.
"You are as like your mother as two peas," said she, angrily; "you look just like her, and speak just like her."
"Do you think so?" asked the child, her whole face brightening.
"I don't know why you should look so pleased about it. Maria was a thriftless creature. No learning but book learning."
"Please don't speak so of my mamma," and the tears stood in Rose's eyes.
"I shall speak just as I please of her," said Dolly; "she was my sister before she was your mother, by a long spell, and I don't know why I am bound to love her for that reason, when there was nothing to love in her."
"But there was," said Rose. "She was sweet, and gentle, and loving, and oh, Aunt Dolly, she was every thing to me," and the hot tears trickled through Rose's slender fingers.
"Fiddle-faddle! Now ain't you ashamed, you great baby, to be bawling here in the street, as if I was some terrible dragon making off with you? That's all the thanks I get for taking you out of the church-yard and putting you in that nice Orphan Asylum."
"If you had only left me in the church-yard," sobbed Rose.
Dolly was quite too angry to reply. The very bows on her bonnet trembled with rage.
After a pause, she turned round, and laying her hands on Rose's trembling shoulders, said,
"Now, look here, Rose Clark, now just take a fair and square look at me. I don't look much like your gentle mother, as you call her, do I?"
"No, no," sobbed Rose, with a fresh burst of tears.
"Well, I ain't like her in any thing. I ain't a-going
