Mrs. Grey had been the happy mother of seven children; they all lived to grow up and marry, and to rise up and call her blessed, with the exception of her youngest daughter, Maud. People said it was a wise and kind thing on the part of Providence, that Maud was not one of the marrying sort. Her mother needed one child to help her down the declivity of life, and it was delightful to see them together. Some who were not acquainted with them, and who only knew them by sight, at church, contrived to see, out of the backs of their heads, that these twain could not live without each other. Maud shared in this opinion to the extent of firmly believing that she could not survive her mother. She was a good, dutiful, devoted child, whose sunny temper made her life like a song in the maternal ear.
"How good God is to me," was Mrs. Grey's frequent thought, "in giving and in sparing to me this darling child! How strange and how sad it would be to live alone in this large house! And Maud fits in to every crack and crevice there is in me as very few girls could. And she is so thoroughly and genially happy that it is not selfish in me to rejoice that she does not care to fly out of the nest!"
They were always together; and in their walks, and talks, and readings, in their visits to the sick and the poor, in their good-fellowship and innocent sallies of humor, they were more like two sisters than mother and daughter. So they went on their way, rejoicing, till Maud had reached her nineteenth year, and then a stealthy step crossed the threshold, and an inexorable hand seized upon this young life and crushed it out.
But is this the way to put it? Is this the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, uttered in the fear of God and the love of Christ? No! a thousand times, no! The event had its sad, its tearful, its sorrowful side; every stricken mother-heart knows that to its core; but it had another side. The life of a young, blooming, mortal frame was brought, humanly speaking, to an untimely end; but the life of an immortal soul went to expand in a congenial atmosphere, where it was far more at home than it had ever been on earth, where all the problems that had ever baffled it, and all the trials that had ever wearied it, had their full explanation; with none to molest, to misunderstand, or to grieve it; beyond temptation, suffering, and sin; in a word, to be "forever with the Lord."
Is it, then, a lot to be desired to die young? Certainly not. We are to desire to die young, or live to a useless old age that cumbers the ground on which it totters, according to the Divine will, not according to our own short-sightedness; and this is what Mrs. Grey thought and felt when the strong, bright light of Maud's presence faded away from her vision, and she could see her no longer, save by the eye of faith. Perhaps some few misunderstood the patient, unselfish way in which this bereavement was met, and thought the brave heart that endured such a sorrow with no clamor, was made of steel. But those who really knew this bereaved mother, knew the whole story. The life-long habit of Gospel love to the neighbor, and of faith in God as One who could not by any possibility make a mistake, came to her rescue. It was right because He did it. And what if she was sorely wounded, was she the only one lying mangled on the battle-field? With characteristic energy she summoned her absent children home; with her own hands she threw open the rooms they were to occupy; and when, during the next days, they came from all directions, in twos, and threes, and fours, to gather around and comfort her, they found cheerful fires blazing, the sweet sunlight streaming in at the windows, and a smile upon her loving face. Not one of her children was surprised; they all knew what mother was. But some of the grandchildren were puzzled; why didn't grandmamma cry more? Why was she so taken up with all their little interests? Why, she even remembered that Julius was fond of oranges, and that Fergus liked cream-cakes! But they had been educated into such faith in her that they did not trouble their young heads with this problem; she was their dear, bright, loving grandmamma, and that was enough.
In a few weeks the little crowd she had called about her disappeared, and she was left alone, quite against their judgment. They all had pleasant homes to offer her, and it seemed to them that the large house they had once peopled would be fearfully lonely now. But she maintained that, with her health and strength, it was better that she should have a home and cares of her own, and a rallying point where they could meet on festal days, as heretofore. So she gradually fell back into the old routine, entering into every one's cares, and interests, and joys, and sorrows, exactly as if she had been created for their special use and comfort, going hither and thither on all sorts of busy commissions, and appearing very much as usual, only a trifle sweeter and gentler. One of her first deeds of kindness was gathering all Maud's clothing together, and sending it to her young friends or needy maidens; and so far from weeping over this task, she took delight in it, realizing how much pleasure she was about to give, or how much service to render. She even smiled at her own mistake, when she saw a very tall young girl try to adapt herself to one of Maud's petite dresses, and rectified it at once. But when it came to her child's favorite books and pictures—the things her heart and soul had reveled in—it was very different; she could not part with them. They had been separated very little, so that she had not a single letter from her to treasure up; but she found in the pocket of the last dress she wore a copy of an evidently favorite hymn, together with a few texts of Scripture. She gave away pearls, and diamonds, and lace that had been Maud's; but no king was rich enough to buy that half-worn scrap of paper.
Maud had many schemes of benevolence which it was now a sacred pleasure to carry out; and although when she now went forth on her errands of mercy, she appeared to go alone rather than with her loving child's companionship, she was not alone, and not unhappy; nay more, she was happy. For when, without a frown, she gave her darling into the Master's hand, He came and more than filled her place, giving the peace that passes all understanding. Now this consciousness of the presence of Christ in the soul is the one thing whose loss the Christian believer, who has once enjoyed it, cannot do without. Husband and wife, home, children, friends, reputation, may all go, and the heart still have a song to sing; but let Him go, or even seem to go, and all the beatitudes on earth are broken fountains that can hold no water. One may find distraction in congenial employment, and comfort and joy in home and friends; but real, abiding happiness, in its full sense, can only be found in Him for whom the soul was created.
Maud's room, with its lovely adjoining boudoir, was left for a long time unchanged. Her mother fed the canary and tended the plants she had loved, exactly as if the child had gone on a short journey and was soon to return. One or two books lay open, just as she had left them; and the whole air of the apartments was kept just what it had been, neat and orderly to precision, refined and tasteful to perfection. Mrs. Grey thought she should always keep these two rooms sacred to the memory of the bright, happy maiden who had made them what they were with her own hands; no other head should touch the pillow on which that fair one had once rested; no other eye should linger on the objects of beauty gathered there—the dainty furniture, the pictures and vines on the walls, the quaint hanging-baskets and brackets, and woodland and sea-shore trophies. She could almost hear the tap of the little hammer with which Maud used to go about nailing up this, that, and the other pretty thing she had picked up, or bought, or invented, and her gay song the while. But as time passed, there began to steal over her a vague sentiment, which later became thought; she must keep the rest of the house for the children and grandchildren; but was it right to shut up those beautiful rooms for one who would never return to them? Could not some other young girl come and nestle there, and enjoy what Maud no longer needed? When she first consulted friends on the subject, they all protested against it. Such experiments always proved failures, they said. It would have to be an extraordinary girl to fill Maud's place, etc., etc.
"But I never thought of filling Maud's place," she argued. "I was only thinking of the happiness it may be in my power to give."
"I should think that among all your grandchildren, one, at least, might be spared," some one suggested.
"But even if I were willing to break into a family circle in that way, and I am not, this would not meet my plan. My grandchildren all have happy homes, and need nothing better. But if I should light upon some friendless girl, think how she would enjoy my dear Maud's forsaken nest!"
"But you might find her uncongenial, even disagreeable."
A sweet, happy smile lighted up Mrs. Grey's face, as she replied:
"I should be doing her good, and trying to make her happy. And after all I have gone through, sustained by the Divine hand, ought I to doubt that if He sends me an uncongenial girl, He will give me grace with which to bear with her?"
Some said this was faith, and all right. Others said that if people went and thrust their heads into a bear's mouth they must expect them to be bitten off, faith or no faith. Now some years before, Mrs. Grey was feeling her way through the dark hall of a tenement-house in the city of New York, when her steps were arrested by the sound of a girl's voice, crying so bitterly that sympathetic tears rushed from her own eyes.
"Oh! mother, mother, mother, don't!" groaned the voice in an agony. "Oh! mother, mother!"
"Some brutal mother beating the poor child unmercifully," she thought, and knocked imperatively at the nearest door.
The sound instantly ceased, but as no other response was made, she opened the door and advanced, with a firm step, into the room. But she started back, shocked at her intrusion, when she found herself face to face with the weeping girl, who was at the bedside of an unconscious woman, reclining on a bed which had been drawn near an open window.
If the agony of the girl had been impressive, the control she was now exercising was not less so. She stood quietly, even coldly, confronting her unexpected visitant, who shrank back embarrassed, hardly venturing to utter a word. But the tender sympathy in her face did more than words could have done.
"Madam, do you know anything about sickness?" demanded the girl.
"Yes, my poor child, a great deal. Do not, I beg of you, treat me as a stranger; but tell me what it was you were entreating your mother not to do. She does not look to me in a condition to do anything. She appears to have fainted."
"I thought she was going to die; that was what I was begging her not to do. Oh! if I knew she had only fainted!"
"Has she been long ill?" asked Mrs. Grey, while she laid aside her cloak and proceeded to examine the prostrate form.
"Not to my knowledge, Madam. She was working, as usual, until twelve o'clock last night; but this morning she did not get up. I spoke to her, but she seemed confused, and kept growing paler and paler till I was frightened, and dragged the bed up to the window to see if the air would revive her. We had a doctor for her a month ago, and he said bad air was like to kill us both."
While the girl was talking, Mrs. Grey had taken from a basket of hospital supplies such restoratives and such refreshments as she thought best, and in a short time had the pleasure of seeing her patient aroused sufficiently to take the nourishment provided for her.
She had now time to take an astonished glance at the room in which she sat. It was not only kept with nicety and care, but there were signs of refinement. A palette with its brushes hung upon the wall; unfinished bits of color were pinned here and there; two or three plants grew thriftily on a shelf by a window, and the seats of several old chairs showed that undeveloped, but artistic taste had had to do with seats covered with woolen patchwork, beautifully put together.
By degrees Mrs. Grey gained the woman's story; it was commonplace enough, but was not narrated in a commonplace way, for not only was her tale adorned by a pretty foreign accent, but by sound common sense and good feeling.
She had married, young, a poor artist, who found her in her Swiss home, and was too eager to secure her to perfect himself in his profession. Neither of their families approved of the match, and they had made a foolish, runaway affair of it, coming to this country full of hope, but without a friend in it.
"My mother hadn't any mother, or brothers, or sisters; and her father wasn't her own father, and wasn't good to her."
Mrs. Grey looked the girl full in the face and smiled. "You think that makes a difference?" she said.
"I do, Madam. My mother never did anything wrong in her life."
What a firm young head was set on those young shoulders! It is not easy to describe, in words, the impression made by both mother and daughter.
"And how did you get on?" Mrs. Grey inquired, turning once more to Mrs. Haydon.
"Well, Madam, we got the punishment our self-will deserved. We knew no one in this country. My husband worked hard, but had no friend to encourage him. He sold pictures enough to keep us alive and, at times, comfortable. But we lived from hand to mouth, and if we had sickness, things went very hard with us. Then he began to get disgusted with his work. He would begin a picture that looked beautiful to me, but would throw it aside unfinished. And it ended just as such stories always end. He died, and I was left alone with my little ones to support myself as best I could."
"You must have married very young?"
"Madam, we were a boy and a girl, nothing more. The laws of my country compel education. I was at school when this folly took place, and when I was left a widow, my position was a very embarrassing one. I was not capable of teaching because I had left school so young; and yet I had come of a good family and been used to certain comforts. For a time I supported myself by embroidery, but this life of confinement and deprivation of sleep—for I had to work till midnight—injured my health; and a physician, whom I consulted a few weeks ago, told me that, what with over-work, poor food, want of exercise, and living in a sphere so different from that in which I was born, I should soon break down completely."
"What do you propose to do, then? Apply to your own or your husband's family?"
"Madam, they return my letters unread. No! I have made up my mind, and Margaret will make up hers when she sees that there is but one way of saving her mother's life. It is a poor life, not worth saving in itself; but it is everything to her. We have supported ourselves with needlework up to the present time, and the work I finished last night will bring in enough to give me a few days' rest, and we shall then go out to service."
"To service!" cried Margaret. "My mother go out to service!"
"Yes, my child. The bad air and the midnight work are killing me. The doctor says so. If we can get a situation in a gentleman's family, and get good air and good food, we yet may be well and happy."
"And your other children?"
"They are all, Madam, safe with the Good Shepherd."
"I admire and respect your resolution, and wish more of my countrywomen were of your mind. Thousands might lead useful, happy lives in our homes, who now lead aimless and comfortless ones. Servitude is no disgrace. I have formed friendships with women in my kitchen that I expect to last a lifetime. Still, I wish I could find some more suitable position for you. You would look for that of seamstress, I suppose?"
"The doctor says I must use my needle no longer."
"Ah, I have it! One of my daughters wants a nursery governess. That would be the very thing. You would take your meals with the children, drive out with them, get excellent compensation, and be as happy as the day is long. And to have a woman in her nursery who fears God, would be most delightful to her."
Mrs. Haydon looked down, and was silent.
"You think you could not have Margaret with you, perhaps?" asked Mrs. Grey, surprised. "But I could manage that, I think."
"Madam, have you a young daughter?" Mrs. Haydon somewhat abruptly asked, in the pretty foreign accent that made everything she said pleasing.
"Yes, and a very beloved one."
"Well, Madam, the position you so kindly propose would be everything I could ask for myself, but no lady would allow a girl of Margaret's age to associate, on equal terms, with her own children, nor live in her house in idleness. This would bring her into contact with other servants, who might be such persons as I should be willing to have her associate with, and might not; probably not. But if I undertake general housework, I have my kitchen all to myself, shall be free from the mental strain of not knowing to-day how we are to live to-morrow, can look after Margaret, and keep her out of harm's way. You see, Madam, that my child's welfare ought to be my only thought. If she were older, and steadier, and had fixed religious principle, it would be different. But as it is, I will submit to anything rather than be separated from her."
"But general housework is very hard; and you look so delicate. And you would get very low wages."
"I am stronger than I look. Housework will come hard at first, after so many years of sitting all day and half the night at needlework; but I gain strength very fast by using what I have, and Margaret is very handy, and will save me a great many steps."
"Still, you do not look like a woman born for a general housemaid."
"And I don't look like a woman born to be a lady," was the reply, with a faint smile. "You see, Madam, that it is my own fault that I am in this difficult position. A girl who makes a runaway match deserves to suffer for it. But it would grieve me sorely to drag my poor child down with me, and therefore I mean to educate her as well as I can, and try to prepare her for some useful position in the world."
"But are you sure of getting situations together?" asked Mrs. Grey.
"Yes, Madam—quite sure. God has humbled my pride, which has long held out against this method of support, and made me willing to live in any honest way He suggests. And He will not forsake me now. He knows that my Margaret is not at an age to face the world without her mother's restraint and her mother's love."
"But," said Mrs. Grey, "you talk like an educated woman, and Margaret's language is not such as one expects to find in a house like this."
"What education we have will make us all the better servants," was the reply.
"I hate to have you call yourself a servant!" Margaret broke forth, impetuously.
"If it is a disgrace, it is one I deserve," was the reply. "I have brought my trials on to myself."
Mrs. Grey went home thoroughly interested in her new charge, and tried to concoct some plan for keeping the two together in a sphere better fitted to their evident refinement. She could think of nothing; therefore she tried the next best thing, namely, to find a family capable of appreciating their good fortune in obtaining such services. In this quest she was successful. Mrs. Haydon and Margaret found a home in a small, Christian family; they had a neat room to themselves, and were treated not only with kindness, but consideration. Mrs. Haydon was respectful, quiet, made a system of her work, found time to read, to attend to Margaret's lessons, and the ladies of the family confided to Mrs. Grey that they should feel as if heaven had come down to earth but for the girl. They did not know what to make of her, and did not like her. Mrs. Grey thought she did understand her; she had not forgotten the anguish of the child when she fancied her mother dying, nor the sudden act of self-control occasioned by her presence. She knew she had heart and soul, and that innate desire rather to hide than to display them, only found in a refined nature.
And now, as she sat meditating by her lonely fireside, she came to the conclusion that if it could be managed, Margaret Haydon would be her choice. Yet a score of difficulties arose at once. It would never answer for the mother to be at service and the daughter living in ease and luxury; in fact, they ought not to be separated in any way. So thinking, she renounced Margaret, and looked about her for some other young person, seeking, as a matter of course, and constantly, Divine direction. Still, Margaret filled her thoughts to such a degree that she was persuaded that, for some reason, hers was the lot to be cast in with her own. A visit from Mrs. Haydon, and some mysterious hints dropped by her, so far settled the question, that she resolved to lay the case before her, and take counsel with her. It was some time before they met again, but when they did so, she opened the subject as delicately and kindly as she could. Mrs. Haydon listened to the whole story in silence, and at its conclusion said, quietly:
"You will see, dear Madam, the hand of God in it all. You say that on the 18th day of January you began to think of my Margaret, and of offering her a home. On that day, after many a sleepless night, I asked leave of my mistress to see a physician; she not only permitted it, but sent for the family doctor. He told me I had six months to live, and no more. Now, here was my poor child to be deprived of her mother, not well-educated enough to teach, too well-educated to be happy among a crowd of ill-bred servants, and I knew not what would become of her. There was only one thing I could do, and that was to leave her with my God. He knew I had no wicked ambition for her, though I did want her so bred, that if her father's family ever fell in with her, they need have no occasion to be ashamed of her. And then I knew that if her natural tastes could be at all gratified, it would keep her from a fondness for dress, and visiting and idling, and other follies to which young women are prone. Now, all my prayers for her are answered. Before you knew of her coming need, your heart was made to yearn over her; and now I can die in perfect peace, for you will be a mother to my child, and teach her all I could have taught her, and far, far more."
"And where do you propose to die?" asked Mrs. Grey.
Two remarkable women had got together, and were talking in this quiet, passionless way of so solemn an event as death. How was this? It arose from the fact that commotion, and hue and cry, and clamor belong only to undisciplined characters. Who ever heard of the General of an army becoming panic-stricken and demoralized? He leaves that to the common soldier.
Both Mrs. Grey and Mrs. Haydon had passed through too many and too deep waters to regard death as anything more than a little rill, over which one passed at a single footstep.
"I shall have to go to a hospital," said Mrs. Haydon.
"And have Margaret nurse you?"
"That is not allowed. And if it is not asking too much, since you so kindly propose to care for my child, might she come to you directly?"
"While you go off, alone, to die in a hospital? No; oh, no. Were you to go at once?"
"Yes, at once. I have toiled on till I can toil no more."
"Is it possible that you are so ill, yet show it so little?"
"It's the quiet mind, the doctor says, that keeps me up. He said that if I had worried, it would have hastened my death. Thank God, I have learned to cast all my care on Him, and He has cared for me."
There was silence for some minutes. What might be mistaken for dogged submission, Mrs. Grey recognized as the kind of faith that travels across and moves mountains. She was decisive in all her ways always knew her own mind, and now came to a very rapid conclusion.
"Does Margaret know?"
"No, Madam. Would you be willing to break it to her?"
"Yes; and I will see that your last days are made as comfortable as possible. Leave everything to me. On the day you are to leave your employer's, send Margaret to me. I will tell her what is before her. Poor child! her distress will be dreadful."
"Would it be right for us to have no farewell?"
"No, no, indeed, you shall have a farewell. Leave everything to me."
Mrs. Haydon took leave, and Mrs. Grey rang; her factotum immediately appeared.
"Mary, we are going to have some visitors; that is, I want the room prepared for a sick person and a young lady. And Mary—their appearance, when they arrive, is to be a matter between you and me; no one else is to know what sort of clothes they wear. When asked questions in the kitchen, just say they are friends of mine."
Mary, discretion itself, withdrew, and in a few days Margaret unsuspectingly made her appearance. Mrs. Grey had a most trying task before her, and expected some such burst of anguish as that of four years ago. But Margaret had passed through much discipline during those four years. To see her mother a kitchen housemaid; to feel herself the yoke of servitude, had been hard, very hard. She did not shed a tear when the truth was told her, and only said, setting her teeth together, "I always have said that if the Lord loved my mother half as well as she loved Him, He'd take her out of a kitchen and find a more suitable place for her."
"He loves her, as He does all His children, so much more than any of us love Him, that we have no arithmetical terms with which to describe it. And if a manger and a carpenter's shop were suitable places for Him, what spot is too humble for us?"
"You would not like to lie in a manger, or work in a carpenter's shop, or drudge in a kitchen."
"No, dear, I do not pretend that I should; but I hope I should act, under the same circumstances, as your mother has done. I think she did the best she could for you. And now she has toiled in an uncongenial sphere long enough, and her Master has by His providence told her so."
"But what will become of her? Sick people need homes. We have laid by some money, but you know mother's wages were very small because she had an incumbrance. Yes, that's all I am in this world, an incumbrance!"
"It will not be so in the next world. But here is the question, as to where your mother is to spend her last months. She has decided to go to a hospital."
"Poor mother! But I will not let them neglect her. I will take care of her day and night."
"My dear, you will not be allowed to do that. An occasional visit is all that is permitted."
"An occasional visit to my sick mother!" cried Margaret; "I should like to see them undertake to separate us! I would tear them to pieces first!"
Mrs. Grey remained silent, and Margaret ran furiously on till the silence struck and checked her.
"We will get your mother safely into a hospital, or what is as good as a hospital, without tearing anyone to pieces. A room is all ready for her, and there you shall take care of her."
"Oh, Mrs. Grey, it is impossible. We haven't nearly enough to justify our taking a room."
"How would this plan suit you, then? Suppose your mother enters a hospital where I know she will be kindly treated, and I give you a home with me? You would be here exactly as if you were my own child, could be well educated, and surrounded by all the refinements of life. Look around you. This beautiful room, with its luxuries, would be yours; you would have books, pictures, everything you wanted."
Margaret looked as she was bidden, and at one glance took in all the charms of the spot. Then rising scornfully to her feet, she burst into tears, jerking out the words in jets of indignation:
"That I should live to be bribed to forsake my dying mother! Now I am degraded!"
Mrs. Grey's experiment was a success. For that it was only an experiment the sagacious reader has at once divined.
"Ah! I knew I was not mistaken in you!" she cried; "I knew you would prove as true as steel!"
She rose and caught both the hands of the excited girl in her own, then said in tones that elicited instant obedience:
"Follow me."
They entered now a large, airy room, which contained two dainty, white beds; an open wood-fire burned on the hearth, near which a cat sat, purring.
"Here is your mother's hospital," said Mrs. Grey, "and you are matron, doctor, nurse, daughter, everything she can need. On these shelves," she added, opening a door, "are the hospital supplies; with this spirit-lamp you can make tea, warm liquids, and do a score of things. Here is a shade from the gas at night; this is a tray for food, when your patient takes to bed; this little nursery refrigerator will keep you supplied with ice day and night, and preserve milk and the like twelve hours and more. This candle will be of service when you have to move about at night, and these dressing-gowns can be washed at your pleasure. You see I am an old soldier in this sort of battle-field, and keep my armor always at hand."
All this, spoken in a cheerful, business-like manner, gave Margaret time to recover herself; without a word of thanks on the one hand, or of demur on the other, she accepted the situation, took off her outer garments and hung them up, and turning to Mrs. Grey, asked, as if all that was befalling her was an every-day occurrence:
"When is my mother coming?"
"I am going for her now. She thinks she is merely to call here to bid you farewell, and then go and languish her life away among strangers."
And then, as Margaret was going to speak, she said:
"I wouldn't talk about it just now, if I were you." So saying, she drove off in her carriage, and in a few hours mother and daughter were alone together in the sweet, fresh room which was now their home. They sat down before the fire, and looked in each other's face as they only look who know that death may part, but never separate them.
"Do you know where you are, mother?" Margaret asked at length.
"Yes," was the surprised answer, "I am in Mrs. Grey's house, on my way to the hospital."
"No, you are in the hospital now, on the way to heaven!"
Then they laughed and cried, and said it was a dream. So they sat, hand in hand, in the long twilight; then Margaret made tea, and cut bread and toasted it, and from the adjoining store-room brought out such delicacies as invalids sometimes will fancy when better food grows insipid, and then helped her mother into one of the soft beds, shaded the gas, and sat thinking, thinking, thinking, till the soft breathing of the sleeper admonished her that she, too, ought to be asleep.
It was not till late next morning that Mrs. Grey came to inquire after her guests, and when she did so, she was in such brilliant spirits, and acted so exactly as if this were a real hospital, miles away, that there was no use in trying to prove that it was not. They had never seen her otherwise than very much in earnest; now she came out in a new character. She told stories; she read amusing extracts from a book she had with her; said she believed she would take lunch with them in case Margaret could stew some oysters on that wonderful little lamp, and made them feel so thoroughly at home that Margaret became quite gay, ran around laying the table in a way that would have put brisk Mary to the blush, and soon had a cosy little lunch prepared, which they all enjoyed.
"If such times could only last!" Margaret thought. "But good times never do." And then she asked leave to exhibit Maud's rooms to her mother, and not an object of beauty escaped their notice, while Mrs. Grey enjoyed their appreciation of her darling's taste.
So time slipped by; Mrs. Grey invariably keeping up Mrs. Haydon's and Margaret's spirits; making the best of everything; suggesting employments for hours when the invalid was free from pain; change of food; change of position; change of furniture; change of pictures when the eye wearied of them, and never out of patience or out of heart. At times the two women fell into sweet and grave talk that Margaret, sitting silently at her work, could not understand. Their doctrines puzzled her beyond measure. She said to herself now and again:
"I don't think so! I don't believe that!" And then would try to reconcile their happy, cheerful lives, their patience, their submission, with her own theories, failed to do it, but carped and caviled within herself, and watched for flaws in them as cats watch for mice, all ready to spring out upon them and rout or devour them.
"It's so queer," she thought, "to hear two people, who have been born and brought up in different countries and in entirely different ways, talk together as if they'd always belonged to one family. They're just like Freemasons—they know each other by the touch. I can't understand it. And now mother has got me off her hands, I verily believe she thinks it the nicest thing in the world to die. But I don't believe she's going to die. People that are going to die are solemn, and mother isn't in the least solemn. She is just exactly what she was before that horrid doctor said she could only live six months. Now I know that, what with freedom from over-work, and nice, tempting food, and living with such a dear, good, funny, quaint old lady, she'll see too well what is good for her, to die. To die! Ugh! I hope I shall live a hundred years! It will take fully that to make up for the time I've lost."
It is easy to believe what one wants to believe, and Margaret found it agreeable to delude herself into the fondest hopes. Her love for her mother, though rarely exhibited, was her ruling passion; it was the only master to whom she would ever submit, yet more than once she became its slave.
Mrs. Haydon's disease, however, was making progress, as she knew perfectly well; and from time to time she tried to give Margaret the parting counsels a Christian mother would naturally wish to give. But Margaret never would allow any allusion to be made to an event she was resolved should not take place, and so the precious time passed on. Mrs. Haydon conferred with Mrs. Grey on the subject, who advised her to put in writing some of the things she longed to say. But the poor woman did not hold the pen of a ready writer, and was, besides, in constant pain; so day after day passed and nothing was done. Then came a sudden change for the worse, and after that a gradual loss of strength, till at last, to her perfect horror, Margaret had to admit that the case was hopeless. The first warm days of June proved exhaustive of what little vitality was left in the worn frame, and the end came rapidly. Mrs. Grey lived through hard times with the passionate girl, whose grief was like a tempest that threatened to sweep her away. In vain she reminded her of the ecstacy of joy in which her mother had entered into rest; in vain spoke of the peaceable fruits of grievous sorrow; in vain took her from place to place. The unsubdued will could not, would not rest.
At the close of the summer, on their return from many wanderings, Margaret was installed in Maud's rooms, and Mrs. Grey introduced her to her friends as her adopted daughter. They had lived under one roof together nearly a year now, but though Margaret's faults were obvious—she taking no pains to conceal them—Mrs. Grey had never wavered in her attachment to and interest in her, and was sure that the Divine hand had brought them together. As to Margaret, she loved Mrs. Grey as she did the few she loved at all, intensely, and by degrees began to regard her with somewhat of the enthusiasm she had felt for her mother. Still she spent a great deal of time by herself, reading the letters of her father and mother in the days of their youthful love. She hardly remembered him, but these letters moved her wonderfully; they were such as she should write if she were in love; and for the first time in her life the thought came to her what it would be to become the object of such devotion.
Theirs had been a real romance, and she had never read of one in any book that touched her as these revelations did. There was not much in her mother's handwriting that was original, but what there was, was tender and girlish. One letter, written during the early part of their marriage, and during a temporary separation, contained the only allusion to herself, and she read it with mingled emotions:
"Nous chantons deux, je lui répète,
Nous chantons d'amour;
Deux dans notre nid d' alouette,
Trois peut-être un jour."
She was recalled from the past to the present by a tap at the door, and reluctantly opening it about an inch, saw Mrs. Grey, who said, "I am sorry to interrupt you, dear; but Mrs. Cameron and Agnes are here, and Mrs. Cameron wants a little confidential talk with me, which would be rather a bore to a young girl; so, if you will entertain her half an hour or so, I shall be very much obliged to you."
"I am not looking fit to go down," said Margaret.
"So I see, poor child!" replied Mrs. Grey. "But Agnes would not mind coming up; indeed she would like to do so, for she has spent many happy hours here in dear little Maud's day."
Margaret rose and went, in a lifeless way, to bathe her tear-swollen eyes, and in a few moments a bright, smiling girl made her appearance.
"Oh! this lovely room!" she cried. "How glad I am to see it once more. You naughty child! why haven't you been to see me? Well, I never saw so many pretty things together in any one room in my life. I am sure you must be the happiest girl living. If you couldn't be happy in such a room as this, you couldn't be happy anywhere!"
"Well, then, let me tell you that it takes more than a beautiful room to make one happy. All this room is good for for me is to be wretched in!"
"Now, Margaret, I did think you would get over moping when you settled down here and found yourself openly adopted by Mrs. Grey. Why, my mother says you ought to be overwhelmed with gratitude."
"I know I ought. But I never do what I ought!"
"Then you ought to be ashamed of yourself. Dear me! if I had such a boudoir as this, and such a bedroom, and a bureau all to myself, I should be as happy as the day is long. As it is, my sister Jane and I have one room together. She takes the two upper bureau drawers, and I have to put up with the two lower ones. Then she contrives to use nearly all the nails in the closet, and nearly all the shelves; and she is forever getting my towels, and mislaying her hair-brush and using mine; besides, I dote on having things tidy and in order, and she keeps all her things helter-skelter. Well, if you won't be happy, you won't; so there it is! Good-bye. Come and see me, do."
"Is it won't?" Margaret asked herself, as the door closed upon the good-humored chatterbox. "If I thought it was—"
She had made the acquaintance of Agnes Cameron during the summer; a shallow friendship had sprung up between them, which would never amount to anything more; now a heedless word from a thoughtless girl had done what all Mrs. Grey's wise counsels had failed to do.
Margaret went to the glass and looked at herself. She had no vanity, and had never cared what people thought of her. She stood, straightening up now, and studied her own face for the first time.
"What a will you have got, Margaret Haydon!" she said; "and what is the use of it, if you sit crying and wailing like a child? I am ashamed of you!"
She folded the letters she had been brooding over all the morning, tied them together with a bit of white ribbon, and locked them up in a drawer. Then she climbed upon a chair and threw the key as far and as high as she could; it alighted behind a box, and there it lay for a year, untouched. Then she walked down-stairs and into the library, and gave Mrs. Grey a good, wholesome, sound kiss.
"Now, aunty," she said, "I hope you've had the worst of me."
Mrs. Grey looked up, and smiled. How many times she had prayed for this day!