The Wide, Wide World

"You'd best be quiet or I'll come and see you," said Nancy; "I'm just going to look at everything in it, and if I find any thing out of sorts, you'll get it. What's this? ruffles, I declare! ain't you fine! I'll see how they look on me. What a plague! you haven't a glass in the room. Never mind – I am used to dressing without a glass."

"Oh, I wish you wouldn't," said Ellen, who was worried to the last degree at seeing her nicely done-up ruffles round Nancy's neck; "they're so nice, and you'll muss them all up."

"Don't cry about it," said Nancy coolly, "I ain't agoing to eat 'm. My goodness! what a fine hood! ain't that pretty?"

The nice blue hood was turned about in Nancy's fingers, and well looked at inside and out. Ellen was in distress for fear it would go on Nancy's head, as well as the ruffles round her neck; but it didn't; she flung it at length on one side, and went on pulling out one thing after another, strewing them very carelessly about the floor.

"What's here? a pair of dirty stockings, as I am alive. Ain't you ashamed to put dirty stockings in your trunk?"

"They are no such thing," said Ellen, who in her vexation was in danger of forgetting her fear – "I've worn them but once."

"They've no business in here anyhow," said Nancy, rolling them up in a hard ball and giving them a sudden fling at Ellen. They just missed her face and struck the wall beyond. Ellen seized them to throw back, but her weakness warned her she was not able, and a moment reminded her of the folly of doing anything to rouse Nancy, who for the present was pretty quiet. Ellen lay upon her pillow and looked on, ready to cry with vexation. All her nicely-stowed piles of white clothes were ruthlessly hurled out and tumbled about; her capes tried on; her summer dresses unfolded, displayed, criticised. Nancy decided one was too short; another very ugly; a third horribly ill-made; and when she had done with each it was cast out of her way on one side or the other as the case might be.

The floor was littered with clothes in various states of disarrangement and confusion. The bottom of the trunk was reached at last, and then Nancy suddenly recollected her gruel, and sprang to it. But it had grown cold again.

"This won't do," said Nancy, as she put it on the coals again, "it must be just right; it'll warm soon, and then, Miss Ellen, you're agoing to take it whether or no. I hope you won't give me the pleasure of pouring it down."

Meanwhile she opened the little door of Ellen's study closet and went in there, though Ellen begged her not. She pulled the door to, and stayed some time perfectly quiet. Not able to see or hear what she was doing, and fretted beyond measure that her workbox and writing-desk should be at Nancy's mercy, or even feel the touch of her fingers, Ellen at last could stand it no longer, but threw herself out of the bed, weak as she was, and went to see what was going on. Nancy was seated quietly on the floor, examining with much seeming interest the contents of the workbox, trying on the thimble, cutting bits of thread with the scissors, and marking the ends of the spools, with whatever like pieces of mischief her restless spirit could devise; but when Ellen opened the door she put the box from her and started up.

"My goodness me!" said she, "this'll never do. What are you out here for? You'll catch your death with those dear little bare feet, and we shall have the mischief to pay."

As she said this she caught up Ellen in her arms as if she had been a baby and carried her back to the bed, where she laid her with two or three little shakes, and then proceeded to spread up the clothes and tuck her in all round. She then ran for the gruel. Ellen was in great question whether to give way to tears or vexation; but with some difficulty determined upon vexation as the best plan. Nancy prepared the gruel to her liking, and brought it to the bedside; but to get it swallowed was another matter. Nancy was resolved Ellen should take it. Ellen had less strength but quite as much obstinacy as her enemy, and she was equally resolved not to drink a drop. Between laughing on Nancy's part and very serious anger on Ellen's a struggle ensued. Nancy tried to force it down, but Ellen's shut teeth were as firm as a vice, and the end was that two-thirds were bestowed on the sheet. Ellen burst into tears; Nancy laughed.

"Well, I do think," said she, "you are one of the hardest customers ever I came across. I shouldn't want to have the managing of you when you get a little bigger. Oh, the way Miss Fortune will look when she comes in here will be a caution! Oh, what fun!"

Nancy shouted and clapped her hands. "Come, stop crying!" said she; "what a baby you are! What are you crying for? Come, stop. I'll make you laugh if you don't."

Two or three little applications of Nancy's fingers made her words good, but laughing was mixed with crying, and Ellen writhed in hysterics. Just then came a little knock at the door. Ellen did not hear it, but it quieted Nancy. She stood still a moment, and then as the knock was repeated she called out boldly, "Come in!" Ellen raised her head "to see who there might be," and great was the surprise of both and the joy of one as the tall form and broad shoulders of Mr. Van Brunt presented themselves.

"Oh, Mr. Van Brunt," sobbed Ellen, "I am so glad to see you! Won't you please send Nancy away!"

"What are you doing here?" said the astonished Dutchman.

"Look and see, Mr. Van Brunt," said Nancy, with a smile of mischief's own curling; "you won't be long finding out, I guess."

"Take yourself off, and don't let me hear of your being caught here again."

"I'll go when I'm ready, thank you," said Nancy; "and as to the rest I haven't been caught the first time yet; I don't know what you mean."

She sprang as she finished her sentence, for Mr. Van Brunt made a sudden movement to catch her then and there. He was foiled, and then began a running chase round the room, in the course of which Nancy dodged, pushed, and sprang with the power of squeezing by impassables and overleaping impossibilities, that, to say the least of it, was remarkable. The room was too small for her, and she was caught at last.

"I vow," said Mr. Van Brunt, as he pinioned her hands, "I should like to see you play blind-man's-buff for once, if I waren't the blind man."

"How'd you see me if you was?" said Nancy scornfully.

"Now, Miss Ellen," said Mr. Van Brunt, as he brought her to Ellen's bedside, "here she is safe; what shall I do with her?"

"If you will only send her away and not let her come back, Mr. Van Brunt," said Ellen, "I'll be so much obliged to you."

"Let me go," said Nancy. "I declare you are a real mean Dutchman, Mr. Van Brunt."

He took both her hands in one and laid the other lightly over her ears.

"I'll let you go," said he. "Now, don't you be caught here again if you know what is good for yourself."

He saw Miss Nancy out of the door and then came back to Ellen, who was crying heartily again from nervous vexation.

"She's gone," said he. "What has that wicked thing been doing, Miss Ellen? What's the matter with you?"

"Oh, Mr. Van Brunt," said Ellen, "you can't think how she has worried me; she has been here this great while. Just look at all my things on the floor, and that isn't the half."

Mr. Van Brunt gave a long whistle as his eye surveyed the tokens of Miss Nancy's mischief-making, over and through which both she and himself had been chasing at full speed, making the state of matters rather worse than it was before.

"I do say," said he slowly, "that is too bad. I'd fix them up again for you, Miss Ellen, if I knew how; but my hands are almost as clumsy as my feet, and I see the marks of them there. It's too bad, I declare. I didn't know what I was going on."

"Never mind, Mr. Van Brunt," said Ellen; "I don't mind what you have done a bit. I'm so glad to see you!"

She put out her little hand to him as she spoke. He took it in his now silently, but though he said and showed nothing of it, Ellen's look and tone of affection thrilled his heart with pleasure.

"How do you do?" said he kindly.

"I am a great deal better," said Ellen. "Sit down, won't you, Mr. Van Brunt? I want to see you a little."

Horses wouldn't have drawn him away after that. He sat down.

"Ain't you going to be up again some of these days?" said he.

"Oh yes, I hope so," said Ellen, sighing; "I am very tired of lying here."

He looked round the room; got up and mended the fire; then came and sat down again.

"I was up yesterday for a minute," said Ellen, "but the chair tired me so, I was glad to get back to bed again."

It was no wonder! harder and straighter-backed chairs never were invented. Probably Mr. Van Brunt thought so.

"Wouldn't you like to have a rocking-cheer?" said he suddenly, as if a bright thought had struck him.

"Oh yes, how much I should!" said Ellen, with another long-drawn breath; "but there isn't such a thing in the house that ever I saw."

"Aye, but there is in other houses, though," said Mr. Van Brunt, with as near an approach to a smile as his lips commonly made; "we'll see!"

Ellen smiled more broadly. "But don't you give yourself any trouble for me," said she.

"Trouble, indeed!" said Mr. Van Brunt; "I don't know anything about that. How came that wicked thing up here to plague you?"

"She said Aunt Fortune left her to take care of me."

"That's one of her lies. Your aunt's gone out, I know; but she's a trifle wiser than to do such a thing as that. She has plagued you badly, ha'n't she?"

He might have thought so. The colour which excitement brought into Ellen's face had faded away, and she had settled herself back against her pillow with an expression of weakness and weariness that the strong man saw and felt.

"What is there I can do for you?" said he, with a gentleness that seemed almost strange from such lips.

"If you would," said Ellen faintly, "if you could be so kind as to read me a hymn, I should be so glad. I've had nobody to read to me."

Her hand put the little book towards him as she said so.

Mr. Van Brunt would vastly rather any one had asked him to plough an acre. He was to the full as much confounded as poor Ellen had once been at a request of his. He hesitated and looked towards Ellen, wishing for an excuse. But the pale little face that lay there against the pillow, the drooping eyelids, the meek, helpless look of the little child put all excuses out of his head; and though he would have chosen to do almost anything else, he took the book, and asked her "Where?" She said anywhere; and he took the first he saw.

"Poor, weak, and worthless though I am,I have a rich, almighty friend;Jesus the Saviour is His name,He freely loves, and without end."

"Oh," said Ellen, with a sigh of pleasure, and folding her hands on her breast – "how lovely that is!"

He stopped and looked at her a moment, and then went on with increased gravity.

"He ransomed me from hell with blood,And by His pow'r my foes controlled;He found me wand'ring far from God,And brought me to His chosen fold."

"Fold!" said Ellen, opening her eyes; "what is that?"

"It's where sheep are penned, ain't it?" said Mr. Van Brunt, after a pause.

"Oh yes," said Ellen, "that's it; I remember; that's like what he said, 'I am the good shepherd,' and 'the Lord is my shepherd;' I know now. Go on, please."

He finished the hymn without more interruption. Looking again towards Ellen, he was surprised to see several large tears finding their way down her cheeks from under the wet eyelashes. But she quickly wiped them away.

"What do you read them things for," said he, "if they make you feel bad?"

"Feel bad!" said Ellen. "Oh, they don't; they make me happy; I love them dearly. I never read that one before. You can't think how much I am obliged to you for reading it to me. Will you let me see where it is?"

He gave it her.

"Yes, there's his mark!" said Ellen, with sparkling eyes. "Now, Mr. Van Brunt, would you be so very good as to read it once more?"

He obeyed. It was easier this time. She listened as before with closed eyes, but the colour came and went once or twice.

"Thank you very much," she said, when he had done. "Are you going?"

"I must; I have some things to look after."

She held his hand still.

"Mr. Van Brunt, don't you love hymns?"

"I don't know much about 'em, Miss Ellen."

"Mr. Van Brunt, are you one of that fold?"

"What fold?"

"The fold of Christ's people."

"I'm afeard not, Miss Ellen," said he soberly, after a minute's pause.

"Because," said Ellen, bursting into tears, "I wish you were, very much."

She carried the great brown hand to her lips before she let it go. He went without saying a word. But when he got out, he stopped and looked at a little tear she had left on the back of it. And he looked till one of his own fell there to keep it company.

CHAPTER XXI

Oh, that had, how sad a passage 'tis!– Shakespeare.

The next day, about the middle of the afternoon, a light step crossed the shed, and the great door opening gently, in walked Miss Alice Humphreys. The room was all "redd up," and Miss Fortune and her mother sat there at work, one picking over white beans at the table, the other in her usual seat by the fire, and at her usual employment, which was knitting. Alice came forward, and asked the old lady how she did.

"Pretty well. Oh, pretty well!" she answered, with the look of bland good-humour her face almost always wore; "and glad to see you, dear. Take a chair."

Alice did so, quite aware that the other person in the room was not glad to see her.

"And how goes the world with you, Miss Fortune?"

"Humph! It's a queer kind of world, I think," answered that lady dryly, sweeping some of the picked beans into her pan. "I get a'most sick of it sometimes."

"Why, what's the matter?" said Alice pleasantly. "May I ask, has anything happened to trouble you?"

"Oh no," said the other somewhat impatiently. "Nothing that's any matter to any one but myself. It's no use speaking about it."

"Ah! Fortune never would take the world easy," said the old woman, shaking her head from side to side. "Never would; I never could get her."

"Now, do hush, mother, will you?" said the daughter, turning round upon her with startling sharpness of look and tone. "Take the world easy! You always did. I'm glad I ain't like you."

"I don't think it's a bad way, after all," said Alice. "What's the use of taking it hard, Miss Fortune?"

"The way one goes on!" said that lady, picking away at her beans very fast, and not answering Alice's question. "I'm tired of it. Toil, toil, and drive, drive, from morning to night; and what's the end of it all?"

"Not much," said Alice gravely, "if our toiling looks no further than this world. When we go we shall carry nothing away with us. I should think it would be very wearisome to toil only for what we cannot keep nor stay long to enjoy."

"It's a pity you warn't a minister, Miss Alice," said Miss Fortune dryly.

"Oh no, Miss Fortune," said Alice, smiling. "The family would be overstocked. My father is one, and my brother will be another. A third would be too much. You must be so good as to let me preach without taking orders."

"Well, I wish every minister was as good a one as you'd make," said Miss Fortune, her hard face giving way a little. "At any rate, nobody'd mind anything you'd say, Miss Alice."

"That would be unlucky, in one sense," said Alice, "but I believe I know what you mean. But, Miss Fortune, no one would dream the world went very hard with you. I don't know anybody, I think, lives in more independent comfort and plenty, and has things more to her mind. I never come to the house that I am not struck with the fine look of the farm and all that belongs to it."

"Yes," said the old lady, nodding her head two or three times, "Mr. Van Brunt is a good farmer – very good. There's no doubt about that."

"I wonder what he'd do," said Miss Fortune, quickly and sharply as before, "if there warn't a head to manage for him! Oh, the farm's well enough, Miss Alice. 'Tain't that. Every one knows where his own shoe pinches."

"I wish you'd let me into the secret, then, Miss Fortune. I'm a cobbler by profession."

Miss Fortune's ill-humour was giving way, but something disagreeable seemed again to cross her mind. Her brow darkened.

"I say it's a poor kind of world, and I'm sick of it! One may slave and slave one's life out for other people, and what thanks do you get? I'm sick of it."

"There's a little body upstairs, or I'm much mistaken, who will give you very sincere thanks for every kindness shown her."

Miss Fortune tossed her head, and brushing the refuse beans into her lap, she pushed back her chair with a jerk to go to the fire with them.

"Much you know about her, Miss Alice! Thanks, indeed! I haven't seen the sign of such a thing since she's been here, for all I have worked and worked and had plague enough with her, I am sure. Deliver me from other people's children, say I!"

"After all, Miss Fortune," said Alice soberly, "it is not what we do for people that makes them love us; or at least, everything depends on the way things are done. A look of love, a word of kindness, goes further towards winning the heart than years of service or benefactions mountain-high without them."

"Does she say I am unkind to her?" asked Miss Fortune fiercely.

"Pardon me," said Alice. "Words on her part are unnecessary. It is easy to see from your own that there is no love lost between you, and I am very sorry it is so."

"Love, indeed!" said Miss Fortune, with great indignation. "There never was any to lose, I can assure you. She plagues the very life out of me. Why, she hadn't been here three days before she went off with that girl Nancy Vawse, that I had told her never to go near, and was gone all night. That's the time she got in the brook. And if you'd seen her face when I was scolding her about it! It was like seven thunder-clouds. Much you know about it! I dare say she's very sweet to you; that's the way she is to everybody beside me. They all think she's too good to live, and it just makes me mad!"

"She told me herself," said Alice, "of her behaving ill another time about her mother's letter."

"Yes, that was another time. I wish you'd seen her."

"I believe she saw and felt her fault in that case. Didn't she ask your pardon? She said she would."

"Yes," said Miss Fortune dryly, "after a fashion."

"Has she had her letter yet?"

"No."

"How is she to-day?"

"Oh, she's well enough – she's sitting up. You can go up and see her."

"I will directly," said Alice. "But now, Miss Fortune, I am going to ask a favour of you. Will you do me a great pleasure?"

"Certainly, Miss Alice, if I can."

"If you think Ellen has been sufficiently punished for her ill-behaviour – if you do not think it right to withhold her letter still – will you let me have the pleasure of giving it to her? I should take it as a great favour to myself."

Miss Fortune made no kind of reply to this, but stalked out of the room, and in a few minutes stalked in again with the letter, which she gave to Alice, only saying shortly, "It came to me in a letter from her father."

"You are willing she should have it?" said Alice.

"Oh yes; do what you like with it."

Alice now went softly upstairs. She found Ellen's door a little ajar, and looking in, could see Ellen seated in a rocking-chair between the door and the fire, in her double gown, and with her hymn-book in her hand. It happened that Ellen had spent a good part of that afternoon in crying for her lost letter; and the face that she turned to the door on hearing some slight noise outside was very white and thin indeed; and though it was placid too, her eye searched the crack of the door with a keen wistfulness that went to Alice's heart. But as the door was gently pushed open, and the eye caught the figure that stood behind it, the sudden and entire change of expression took away all her powers of speech. Ellen's face became radiant; she rose from her chair, and as Alice came silently in and kneeling down to be near her, took her in her arms, Ellen put both hers round Alice's neck and laid her face there; one was too happy and the other too touched to say a word.

"My poor child!" was Alice's first expression.

"No, I ain't," said Ellen, tightening the squeeze of her arms round Alice's neck; "I am not poor at all now."

Alice presently rose, sat down in the rocking-chair, and took Ellen in her lap; and Ellen rested her head on her bosom, as she had been wont to do of old time on her mother's.

"I am too happy," she murmured. But she was weeping, and the current of tears seemed to gather force as it flowed. What was little Ellen thinking of just then? Oh! those times gone by, when she had sat just so; her head pillowed on another as gentle a breast; kind arms wrapped round her, just as now; the same little old double-gown; the same weak, helpless feeling; the same committing herself to the strength and care of another; how much the same, and oh! how much not the same! And Ellen knew both. Blessing as she did the breast on which she leaned and the arms whose pressure she felt, they yet reminded her sadly of those most loved and so very far away; and it was an odd mixture of relief and regret, joy and sorrow, gratified and ungratified affection, that opened the sluices of her eyes. Tears poured.

"What is the matter, my love?" said Alice softly.

"I don't know," whispered Ellen.

"Are you so glad to see me? or so sorry? or what is it?"

"Oh, glad and sorry both, I think," said Ellen, with a long breath, and sitting up.

"Have you wanted me so much, my poor child?"

"I cannot tell you how much," said Ellen, her words cut short.

"And didn't you know that I have been sick too? What did you think had become of me? Why, Mrs. Vawse was with me a whole week, and this is the very first day I have been able to go out. It is so fine to-day I was permitted to ride Sharp down."

"Was that it?" said Ellen. "I did wonder, Miss Alice; I did wonder very much why you did not come to see me; but I never liked to ask Aunt Fortune, because – "

"Because what?"

"I don't know as I ought to say what I was going to. I had a feeling she would be glad about what I was sorry about."

"Don't know that you ought to say," said Alice. "Remember, you are to study English with me."

Ellen smiled a glad smile.

"And you have had a weary two weeks of it, haven't you, dear?"

"Oh," said Ellen, with another long-drawn sigh, "how weary! Part of that time, to be sure, I was out of my head; but I have got so tired lying here all alone; Aunt Fortune coming in and out was just as good as nobody."

"Poor child!" said Alice, "you have had a worse time than I."

"I used to lie and watch that crack in the door at the foot of my bed," said Ellen, "and I got so tired of it I hated to see it, but when I opened my eyes I couldn't help looking at it, and watching all the little ins and outs in the crack till I was as sick of it as could be. And that button, too, that fastens the door, and the little round mark the button has made, and thinking how far the button went round. And then if I looked towards the windows I would go right to counting the panes, first up and down and then across; and I didn't want to count them, but I couldn't help it; and watching to see through which pane the sky looked brightest. Oh, I got so sick of it all! There was only the fire that I didn't get tired of looking at; I always liked to lie and look at that, except when it hurt my eyes. And, oh, how I wanted to see you, Miss Alice! You can't think how sad I felt that you didn't come to see me. I couldn't think what could be the matter."

"I should have been with you, dear, and not have left you, if I had not been tied at home myself."

"So I thought; and that made it seem so very strange. But, oh! don't you think," said Ellen, her face suddenly brightening, "don't you think, Mr. Van Brunt came up to see me last night? Wasn't it good of him? He even sat down and read to me; only think of that. And isn't he kind? he asked if I would like a rocking-chair; and of course I said yes, for these other chairs are dreadful, they break my back; and there wasn't such a thing as a rocking-chair in Aunt Fortune's house, she hates 'em, she says; and this morning, the first thing I knew, in walked Mr. Van Brunt with this nice rocking-chair. Just get up and see how nice it is; you see the back is cushioned, and the elbows, as well as the seat; it's queer looking, ain't it? but it's very comfortable. Wasn't it good of him?"