The Letter of Credit

"Mr. Digby, what is the good of my knowing Latin?" she ventured to ask one day.

"You know a little about farming, do you not, Rotha?" was the counter question.

"More than a little bit, I guess."

"Do you? Then you know perhaps what is the use of ploughing the ground?"

"To make it soft. What ground are you ploughing with Latin, Mr. Digby?"

"The ground of your mind; to get it into working order."

This intimation incensed Rotha. She was too vexed to speak. All this trouble just to get her mind into working order?

"Is that all Latin is good for?" she asked at length.

"By no means. But if it were – that is no small benefit. Not only to get the ground in working order, but to develope the good qualities of it; as for instance, the power of concentration, the power of attention, the power of discernment."

"I can concentrate my attention when I have a mind to," said Rotha.

"That is well. I am going to give you something else to do which will practise you in that."

"What, Mr. Digby?" With all her impatience Rotha was careful to observe the forms of politeness with her teacher. He silently handed her an arithmetic.

"Oh! – " said the girl, drawing out the word" – I have done sums, Mr.

Digby."

"How far?"

It turned out that Rotha's progress in that walk of learning had been limited to a very few steps. And even in those few steps, Mr. Digby's tests and questions gave her a half hour of sharp work; so sharp as to bar other thoughts for the time. Rotha shewed in this half hour uumistakeable capacity for the science of numbers; nevertheless, when her teacher went away leaving her a good lesson in arithmetic to study along with her Latin grammar, Rotha spoke herself dissatisfied.

"Am I to learn just whatever Mr. Digby chooses to give me?" she asked.

"I thought you liked learning, Rotha?"

"Yes, mother; so I do. I like learning well enough; I don't like him to say what I shall learn."

"Why not? Mr. Digby is very kind, Rotha!"

"He may mean it for kindness. I don't know what he means it for."

"It is nothing but pure goodness," said the mother with a grateful sigh.

"Well, is he to give me everything to learn that he takes into his head?"

"Rotha, a teacher could not be kinder or more patient than Mr. Digby is with you."

"I don't try his patience, mother."

It was true enough; she did not. She had often tried her mother's; with Mr. Digby Rotha was punctual, thorough, prompt and docile. Whether it were pride or a mingling of something better, – and Rotha did love learning, – she never gave occasion for a point of blame. It was not certainly that Mr. Digby was harsh or stern, or used a manner calculated to make anybody fear him; unless indeed it were the perfectness of good breeding which he always shewed, here in the poor sempstress's room, and in his lessons to the sempstress's child. Rotha had never seen the like in anybody before; and that more than ought else probably wrought in her such a practical awe of him. Mrs. Carpenter was even half amused to observe how Rotha unconsciously in his presence was adopting certain points of his manner; she was quiet; she moved with moderate steps; she spoke in low tones; she did not fly out in impatient or angular words or gestures, as was her way often enough at other times. Yet her mother knew, and wondered why, Rotha rebelled in secret against the whole thing. For herself, she was growing into a love for Mr. Digby which was almost like that of a mother for a son; as indeed his manner towards her was much like that of a son towards his mother. It was not the benefits conferred and received; it was a closer bond which drew them together, and a deeper relation. They looked into each other's faces, and saw there, each in the other, what each recognized as the signature of a handwriting that they loved; the stamp of a likeness that was to them both the fairest of all earthly things. Then came the good offices rendered and accepted; the frequent familiar intercourse; the purely human conditions of acquaintanceship and friendship; and it was no matter of surprise if by and by the care on the one part and the dependence on the other grew to be a thing most natural and most sweet.

So it came about, that by degrees the look of things changed in Mrs. Carpenter's small dwelling place. As the cold of the winter began to give way to the harshness of spring, and March winds blew high, the gaseous fumes from the little anthracite coal stove provoked Mrs. Carpenter's cough sadly. "She was coughing all day," Mrs. Cord told their friend in private; "whenever the wind blew and the gas came into the room." Mr. Digby took his measures. The little cooking stove was removed; a little disused grate behind it was opened; and presently a gentle fire of Liverpool coal was burning there. The atmosphere of the room as well as the physiognomy of it was entirely changed; and Mrs. Carpenter hung over the fire and spread out her hands to it with an expression of delight on her wasted face which it was touching to see. Mr. Digby saw it, and perhaps to divert the feeling which rose in him, began to find fault with something else.

"That's a very uncomfortable chair you are sitting in!" he said with a strong expression of disapproval.

"O it does very well indeed," answered Mrs. Carpenter. "I want nothing, I think, having this delightful fire."

"How do you rest when you are tired?"

"I lean back. Or I lie down sometimes."

"Humph! Beds are very well at night. I do not think they are at all satisfactory by day."

"Why what would you have?" said Mrs. Carpenter, smiling at him.

"I'll see."

It was the next day only after this that Rotha, having finished her work for her teacher and nothing else at the moment calling for attention, was standing at the window looking out into the narrow street. The region was poor, but not squalid; nevertheless it greatly stirred Rotha's disgust. If New York is ever specially disagreeable, it finds the occasion in a certain description of March weather; and this was such an occasion. It was very cold; the fire in the grate was well made up and burning beautifully and the room was pleasant enough; but outside there were gusts that were almost little whirlwinds coursing up and down every street, carrying with them columns and clouds of dust. The dust accordingly lay piled up on one side of the way, swept off from the rest of the street; not lying there peacefully, but caught up again from time to time, whirled through the air, shaken out upon everybody and everything in its way, and finally swept to one side and deposited again.

"It's the most horrid weather, mother, you can think of!" Rotha reported from her post of observation. "I shouldn't think anybody would be out; but I suppose they can't help it. A good many people are going about, anyhow. Some of them are so poorly dressed, mother! there was a woman went by just now, carrying a basket; I should say she had very little on indeed under her gown; the wind just took it and wrapped it round her, and she looked as slim as a post."

"Poor creature!" said Mrs. Carpenter.

"Mother, we never saw people like that in Medwayville."

"No."

"Why are they here, and not there?"

"You must ask Mr. Digby."

"I don't want to ask Mr. Digby! – There are two boys; ragged; – and barefooted. I don't know what they are out for; they have nothing to do; they are just playing round an ash-barrel. I should think they'd be at home."

"Such people's home is often worse than the streets."

"But you don't know how it blows to-day. I should think, mother," said Rotha slowly, "New York must want a great many good people in it."

"There are a great many good people in it."

"What are they doing, then?"

"Looking out for Number One, mostly," Mrs. Cord answered, who happened to be in the room.

"But it wants people rich enough to look out for Number One, and for Number Two as well."

Mrs. Carpenter sighed. She knew there were more sides to the problem than the simple "one and two" which appeared to Rotha.

"There comes a coal cart, mother; that has to go, I suppose, for somebody wants it. I should hate to drive a coal cart! Mother, who wants it here? It is backing down upon our sidewalk."

"Mrs. Marble, I suppose."

"No, she don't; she has got her coal all in; and this isn't her coal at all; it is in big lumps some of it, like what came for the grate, and it isn't shiny like the stove coal. It must be for you, I guess."

Rotha ran down to see, and came back with the receipt for her mother to sign. Mrs. Carpenter signed with a trembling hand, and Rotha flew away again.

"It is a whole cart-load, mother," she said coming back.

"There is one good rich man in New York," said Mrs. Carpenter tremulously.

"Do you think he is rich?"

"I fancy so."

"He hasn't spent so very much on us, has he?" asked Rotha consideringly.

"It seems much to me. More than our share, I am afraid."

"Our share of what?"

"His kindness."

"Who has the other shares?"

"I cannot tell. Other people he knows, that are in need of it."

"Mother, we are not in need of it, are we? We could get along without oysters, I suppose. But what I am thinking of is, if he gives other people as good a share of his time as he gives us, he cannot live at home much. Where does Mr. Digby live, Mrs. Cord?"

"I don't know as I can say, Rotha. It is a hotel somewheres, I believe."

"I should not think anybody would live in a hotel," said Rotha, remembering her own and her mother's experience of the "North River." "Now here comes another cart the carts have to go in all sorts of times; but O how the dust blows about! This cart is carrying something – I can't see what it's all wrapped up."

"My dear Rotha," said her mother, "I am not interested to know what the carts in the street are doing. Are you?"

"This one is stopping, mother. It is stopping here!"

"Well, my dear, what if it is. It is no business of ours."

"The other cart was our business, though; how do you know, mother? It has stopped here, and the man is taking the thing off."

Mrs. Cord came to the window to look, and then went down stairs. Rotha, seeing that the object of her interest, whatever it were, had disappeared within doors, presently followed her. In the little bit of a hall below stood a large something which completely filled it up; and on one side and on the other, Mrs. Marble and Mrs. Cord were taking off the wrappings in which it was enfolded.

"Well, I declare!" said the former, when they had done. "Aint that elegant!"

"Just like him," said Mrs. Cord. "I guessed this was coming, or something like it."

"What is it?" asked Rotha.

"How much does a thing like that cost, now?" Mrs. Marble went on. "Oh see the dust on it! There's a half bushel or less. Here – wait till I get my brush. – How is it ever to go up stairs? that's what I'm lookin' at."

Help had to be called in; and meantime Rotha rushed up stairs and informed her mother that a chair was come for her that was like nothing she had ever seen in her life; "soft all over," as Rotha expressed it; "back and sides and all soft as a pillow, and yet harder than a pillow; like as if it were on springs everywhere;" which was no doubt the truth of the case. "It's like getting into a nest, mother; I sat down in it; there's no hard place anywhere; there's no wood to it, that you can see."

When a little later the chair made its appearance, and Mrs. Carpenter sank down into its springy depths, it is a pity that Mr. Digby could not have heard the low long-drawn 'Oh! – ' of satisfaction and relief and wonder together, which came from her lips. Rotha stood and looked at her. Mrs. Carpenter was resting, in a very abandonment of rest; but in the abandonment of the moment shewing, as she did not use to shew it, the great enervation and prostration of her system. Her head, leaning back on the soft support it found, her hands laid exhaustedly on one side and on the other, the motionless pose of her whole person, struck Rotha with some strange new consciousness.

"Is it good?" she asked shortly.

"Very!" The word was almost a sigh.

"What makes you so weak to-day?"

"I am not weaker than usual."

"You don't always look like that."

"She's never had anything like that to rest in before," Mrs. Cord suggested. "A bed aint like one o' them chairs, for supportin' one everywhere alike. You let her rest, Rotha. Will you have an oyster, dear?"

Rotha sat down at the corner of the fireplace and stared at her mother; taking the oyster, and yet not relinquishing that air of helpless lassitude. She was not sewing either; and had not been sewing, Rotha remembered, except by snatches, for several days past. Rotha sat and gazed at her, an anxious shadow falling upon her features.

"You needn't look like that at her," said the good woman who was preparing Mrs. Carpenter's glass of wine; "she'll be rested now in a little, and feel nicely. She's been a wantin' this, or something o' this sort; but there aint nothing better than one o' them spring chairs, for resting your back and your head and every inch of you at once. Now she's got her oyster and somethin' else, and she'll pick up, you'll see."

"How good it is you came to live here," said the sick woman. "I do not know what we should do without you. You seem to understand just how everything ought to be done."

"Mother," said Rotha, "do you think I couldn't take care of you just as well? Didn't I, before Mrs. Cord came?"

"You haven't had quite so much experience, you see," put in the latter.

"Didn't I, mother?" the girl said passionately.

Mrs. Carpenter answered only by opening her arms; and Rotha coming into them, sat down lightly upon her mother's lap and hid her head on her bosom. A shadow of, she knew not what, had fallen across her, and she was very still. Mrs. Carpenter folded her arms close about her child; and so they sat for a good while. Mother and daughter, each had her own thoughts; but those of the one were dim and confused as ever thoughts could be. The other's were sharp and clear. Rotha had an uneasy sense that her mother's strength was not gaining but losing; an uneasy impatience of her lassitude and powerlessness, which yet she could not at all read. Mrs. Carpenter read it well.

She knew of a surety that her days were numbered; and not only so, but that the number of them was running out. Many cares she had not, in view of this fact; but one importunate, overwhelming, intolerable, were it not that the mother's faith was fixed where faith is never disappointed. Even so, she was human; and the question, what would be the fate of her little daughter when she herself was gone, pressed hard and pressed constantly, and found no solution. So the two were sitting, in each other's arms, mute and thoughtful, when Mr. Digby came in.

Rotha did not stir, and he came up to them, bent down by the side of the chair and took Mrs. Carpenter's hand. If he put the usual question, Mrs. Carpenter did not answer it; her eyes met his silently. There was a power of grateful love and also of grave foreboding in her quiet face; one of those looks which from an habitually self-contained spirit come with so much power on any one capable of understanding them. The young man's eyes fell from her to Rotha; the two faces were very near each other; and for the first time Rotha's defiance gave place to a little bit of liking. She had not seen her mother's look; but she had watched Mr. Digby's eyes as they answered it, in their ear nest, intent expression, and then as the eyes came to her she felt the warm ray of kindness and sympathy which beamed from them. A moment it was, but Rotha was Mr. Digby's opponent no more from that time.

"You seem to be having a pleasant rest," he remarked in his usual calm way. "I hope you have got all your work done for me?"

"I never do rest till my work is done," said the girl.

"That is a very good plan. Will you prove the fact on the present occasion?"

Rotha unwillingly left her place.

"Mr. Digby, what sort of a chair is this?"

"A spring chair."

"It is a very good thing."

"I am glad it meets your approbation."

"It meets mother's too. Do you see how she rests in it?"

"Does she rest?" asked the young man, rather of Mrs. Carpenter than of her daughter.

"All the body can," she answered with a faint smile.

"'Underneath are the everlasting arms' – " he said.

But that word caused a sudden gush of tears on the sick woman's part; she hid her face; and Mr. Digby called off Rotha at once to her recitations. He kept her very busy at them for some time; Latin and arithmetic and grammar came under review; and then he proceeded to put a pen in her hand and give her a dictation lesson; criticised her handwriting, set her a copy, and fully engrossed Rotha's eyes and mind.

CHAPTER VI.

A LEGACY

"Mother," said Rotha, when their visiter was again gone and her copy was done and she had returned to her mother's side, "I never knew before to- day that Mr. Digby has handsome eyes."

"How did you find it out to-day?"

"I had a good look at them, and they looked at me so."

"How?"

"I don't know – as if they meant a good deal, and good. Don't you think he has handsome eyes, mother?"

"I always knew that. He is a very fine-looking man altogether."

"Is he? I suppose he is. Only he likes to have his own way."

"I wonder if somebody else doesn't, that I know?"

"That's the very thing, mother. If I didn't, I suppose I shouldn't care. But when Mr. Digby says anything, he always looks as if he expected it to be just so, and everybody to mind him."

Mrs. Carpenter could not help laughing, albeit she was by no means in a laughing mood. Her laugh was followed by a sigh.

"What makes you draw a long breath, mother?"

"I wish you could govern that temper of yours, my child."

"Why, mother? Haven't I as good a right to my own way as Mr. Digby, or anybody?"

"Few people can have their own way in the world; and a woman least of all."

"Why?"

"She generally has to mind the will of somebody else."

"But that isn't fair."

"It is the way things are."

"Mother, it may be the way with some people; but I have got nobody to mind?"

"Your mother? – "

"O yes; but that isn't it. You are a woman. There is no man I must mind."

"If you ever grow up and marry somebody, there will be."

"I would never marry anybody I had to mind!" said the girl energetically.

"You are the very person that would do it," said the mother; putting her hand fondly upon Rotha's cheek. "My little daughter! – If only I knew that you were willing to obey the Lord Jesus Christ, I could be easy about you."

"And aren't, you easy about me?"

"No," said the mother sadly.

"Would you be easy if I was a Christian?"

Mrs. Carpenter nodded. There was a pause.

"I would like to be a Christian, mother, if it would make you feel easy; but – somehow – I don't want to."

"I know that."

"How do you know that?"

"Because you hold off. If you were once willing, the thing would be done."

There was silence again; till Rotha suddenly broke it by asking, "Mother, can I help my will?"

"What do you mean?"

"Why! If I don't want to be a Christian, can I make myself want to?"

"That seems to me a foolish question," said her mother. "Suppose you do not want to do something I tell you to do; need that hinder your obeying?"

"But this is different."

"I do not see how it is different."

"What is being a Christian, then?"

"You know, Rotha."

"But tell me, mother. I don't know if I know."

"You ought to know. A Christian is one who loves and serves the Lord Jesus."

"And then he can't do what he has a mind to," said Rotha.

"Yes, he can; unless it is something wrong."

"Well, he can't do what he has a mind to; he must always be asking."

"That is not hard, if one loves the Lord."

"But I don't love him, mother."

"No," said Mrs. Carpenter sadly.

"Can I make myself love him?"

"No; but that is foolish talk."

"I don't see why it is foolish, I am sure. I wish I did love him, if it would make you feel better."

"I should not have a care left!" said Mrs. Carpenter, with a sort of breath of longing.

"Why not, mother?"

"Get the Bible and read the 121st psalm, – slowly."

Rotha obeyed.

"'I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth'" —

"There! if you were one of the Lord's dear children, you would say that; that would be true of you. Now go on, and see what the Lord says to it; see what would follow."

Rotha went on.

"'He will not suffer thy foot to be moved; he that keepeth thee will not slumber. Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.' —Israel, mother."

"The true Israel are the Lord's true children, of any nation."

"Are they? Well – 'The Lord is thy keeper; the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand; the sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil; he shall preserve thy soul. The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in, from this time forth, and even for evermore. Praise ye the Lord.'"

"Would anybody be well kept that was kept so?" Mrs. Carpenter broke forth, with the tears running down her face. "O my little Rotha! my little daughter! if I knew you in that care, how blessed I should be!"

The tears streamed, and Mrs. Carpenter in vain tried to wipe them dry.

Rotha looked on, troubled, and a little conscience-stricken.

"Mother," she began, "don't he take care of anybody except Christians?"

"Yes," said Mrs. Carpenter; "he takes care of the children of Christians; and so I have faith that he will take care of you; but it is not just so. If you will not come to him now, he may take painful ways to bring you; if you will not trust him now, he may cut away everything else you trust to, till you flee to him for help. But I wish you would take the easier way."

"But can I help my will?" said Rotha again, holding fast to that tough argument. "What can I do?"

"I cannot tell. You had better ask Mr. Digby. I am not able for any more questions just now."

"Mother. I'll bring you your milk," said Rotha, rather glad of a diversion. "Mother, do you think Mr. Digby can answer all sorts of questions?"

"Better than I can."

She brought her mother the glass of milk and the biscuit and sat watching her while she took them. She noticed the thin hands, the exhausted look, the weary attitude, the pale face. What state of things was this? Her mother eating biscuit and oysters got with another person's money; doing no work, or next to none; living in lodgings, but apparently without the prospect of earning the means to pay her rent; too feeble to do much but rest in that spring chair.

"Mother," Rotha began, with a lurking, unrecognized feeling of anxiety —

"I wish you would make haste and get well!"

Mrs. Carpenter was eating biscuit, and made no reply.

"Don't you think you are a little better?"

"Not exactly to-day."

"What would do you good?"

"Nothing that you could give me, darling. I am very comfortable. I wonder to see myself so supplied with everything I can possibly want. Look at this chair! It is almost better than all the rest."

"That and the fire."

"Yes; the blessed fire! It is so good!"

"But I wish you'd get well, mother!" Rotha said with a half sigh.

Mrs. Carpenter made no answer.

"I don't see how we are going to do, if you don't get well soon," Rotha went on with a kind of impatient uneasiness. "What shall we do for money, mother? there's the rent and everything."

"You forget what you have just been reading, my child. Do you think the words mean nothing? – 'The Lord is thy keeper; the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand. The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.'"

"But that don't pay rent," said Rotha.

"You think the Lord can do great things, and cannot do little things. I can trust him for all."

"Then why cannot you trust him for me?"

"I do."

"Then why are you troubled?"

"Because here your self-will comes in; and you may have to go through hard times before it is broken."