that the mother always thought she knew better than anybody else how to manage that child. Now, you know, Mis. Jones, I’m a physician, and ought to know something about the laws that govern the human body, but you’ll be astonished to hear that she frequently acted directly contrary to my advice, and this is the result; that tells the whole story. However, as Mis. Hall says, the child is better off; and as to Ruth, why the Lord generally sends afflictions where they are needed;” and the doctor returned to his corner.
“It looks very lonely at the Glen since they moved away,” remarked Mrs. Jones. “I suppose they don’t think of coming back.”
“How?” replied the doctor, re-appearing from his corner.
“I suppose your son and his wife have no idea of returning to the Glen,” said Mrs. Jones.
“No – no. Ruth is one of the uneasy kind; it’s coming and going – coming and going with her. She fancied everything in doors and out reminded her of Daisy, and kept wandering round, trying to be rid of herself. Now that proves she didn’t make a sanctifying use of her trouble. It’s no use trying to dodge what the Lord sends. We’ve just got to stand and take it; if we don’t, he’ll be sending something else. Them’s my sentiments, and I consider ’em scripteral. I shouldn’t be surprised if Harry was taken away from her; – a poor, miserable thing she’d be to take care of herself, if he was. She couldn’t earn the salt to her porridge. Thriftless, Mis. Jones, thriftless – come of a bad stock – can’t expect good fruit off a wild apple tree, at least, not without grace is grafted on; that tells the whole story.”
“Well; my heart aches for her,” said the kind Mrs. Jones. “Mrs. Hall is very delicately organized, – one of those persons capable of compressing the happiness or misery of a lifetime into a few moments.”
“Stuff,” said the doctor, “stuff; don’t believe it. I’m an example to the contrary. I’ve been through everything, and just look at me;” and the doctor advanced a pace or two to give Mrs. Jones a better view of his full-blown peony face, and aldermanic proportions; “don’t believe it, Mis. Jones; stuff! Fashion to be sentimental; nerves a modern invention. Ridiculous!”
“But,” said the persistent Mrs. Jones, “don’t you think, doctor, that – ”
“Don’t think anything about it,” said the doctor. “Don’t want to hear anything about it. Have no patience with any woman who’d let a husband sell a farm at such a sacrifice as Harry’s was sold, merely because there was a remote chance she would become insane if she staid there. Now, I’ve enough to do – plenty to do, but, still, I was willing to superintend that farm a little, as my doing so was such a help to Harry. Well, well; they’ll both go to the dogs, that’s the amount of it. A rolling stone gathers no moss. Harry was good for something before he married Ruth; had a mind of his own. Ruth aint the wife for him.”
“He did not appear to think so,” replied the obstinate Mrs. Jones. “Everybody in the village says, ‘what a happy couple they are.’”
“O-o-h– my!” hissed the old lady, “did you ever, doctor? Of course, Mrs. Jones, you don’t suppose Harry would be such a fool as to tell people how miserable he was; but mothers, Mrs. Jones, mothers are keen-sighted; can’t throw dust in a mother’s eyes.”
“Nor in mine,” retorted the independent Mrs. Jones, with a mock courtesy to the old lady, as she walked out the door, muttering as she went down the road, “Sally Jones will tell her the truth if nobody else will.”
“Mis. Hall,” said the doctor, drawing himself up so straight as to snap off his waist-band button, “this is the last time that woman ever crosses my threshold. I shall tell Deacon Smith that I consider her a proper subject for church discipline; she’s what the bible calls ‘a busy body in other men’s matters;’ a character which both you and I despise and abominate, Mis. Hall.”
CHAPTER XXIV
The first-born! Oh, other tiny feet may trip lightly at the hearth-stone; other rosy faces may greet us round the board; with tender love we soothe their childish pains and share their childish sports; but “Benjamin is not,” is written in the secret chamber of many a bereaved mother’s heart, where never more the echo of a childish voice may ring out such liquid music as death hath hushed.
Spring had garlanded the earth with flowers, and Autumn had withered them with his frosty breath. Many a Summer’s sun, and many a Winter’s snow, had rested on Daisy’s grave, since the date of our last chapter.
At the window of a large hotel in one of those seaport towns, the resort alike of the invalid and pleasure-seeker, sat Ruth; the fresh sea-breeze lifting her hair from temples thinner and paler than of yore, but stamped with a holier beauty. From the window might be seen the blue waters of the bay leaping to the bright sunlight; while many a vessel outward and inward bound, spread its sails, like some joyous white-winged sea bird. But Ruth was not thinking of the sapphire sky, though it were passing fair; nor of the blue sea, decked with its snowy sails; for in her lap lay a little half-worn shoe, with the impress of a tiny foot, upon which her tears were falling fast.
A little half-worn shoe! And yet no magician could conjure up such blissful visions; no artist could trace such vivid pictures; no harp of sweetest sounds could so fill the ear with music.
Eight years since the little Daisy withered! And yet, to the mother’s eye, she still blossomed fair as Paradise. The soft, golden hair still waved over the blue-veined temples; the sweet, earnest eyes still beamed with their loving light; the little fragile hand was still outstretched for maternal guidance, and in the wood and by the stream they still lingered. Still, the little hymn was chanted at dawn, the little prayer lisped at dew-fall; still, that gentle breathing mingled with the happy mother’s star-lit dreams.
A little, bright-eyed creature, crept to Ruth’s side, and lifting a long, wavy, golden ringlet from a box on the table near her, laid it beside her own brown curls.
“Daisy’s in heaven,” said little Katy, musingly. “Why do you cry, mamma? Don’t you like to have God keep her for you?”
A tear was the only answer.
“I should like to die, and have you love my curls as you do Daisy’s, mother.”
Ruth started, and looked at the child; the rosy flush had faded away from little Katy’s cheek, and a tear stole slowly from beneath her long lashes.
Taking her upon her lap, she severed one tress of her brown hair, and laid it beside little Daisy’s golden ringlet.
A bright, glad smile lit up little Katy’s face, and she was just throwing her arms about her mother’s neck, to express her thanks, when, stopping suddenly, she drew from her dimpled foot one little shoe, and laid it in her mother’s palm.
’Mid smiles and tears Ruth complied with the mute request; and the little sister shoes lay with the twin ringlets, lovingly side by side.
Blessed childhood! the pupil and yet the teacher; half infant, half sage, and whole angel! what a desert were earth without thee!
CHAPTER XXV
Hotel life is about the same in every latitude. At Beach Cliff there was the usual number of vapid, fashionable mothers; dressy, brainless daughters; half-fledged wine-bibbing sons; impudent, whisker-dyed roués; bachelors, anxious to give their bashfulness an airing; bronchial clergymen, in search of health and a text; waning virgins, languishing by candle-light; gouty uncles, dyspeptic
