CHAPTER IX.
RUTH'S MISGIVINGS AND MENTAL AGONY.
It is now time that we should return to Ruth and her children.
After her husband had left her, as we narrated in the first chapter, she was very sad, almost desolate, and she felt she must retire to hold communion with Him who promised to give rest to the weary soul who came to Him; so, leaving little Mamie in care of Eddie and Allie, she retired to her room to weep and also to pray. She was literally following the injunction of her Saviour—praying to her Father in secret that He might reward her openly. The reward she longed for was that He would protect her husband and influence him to walk aright.
As she was thus alone—and yet not alone, for God was with her—her memory took her back to the sunny days of her girlhood. How bright those halcyon days appeared! She was in fancy again walking amid the green fields and by the hedgerows of dear old England, plucking the daisies from the meadows and listening to the sweet strains of the lark as it carolled its lay to the morning. Sunny visions of the past, with loved faces wandering in their golden light, flitted before her; and her heart was filled with sadness as she remembered the breaks that Time, with his relentless hand, had made in that once happy number. She found herself unconsciously repeating—
"Friend after friend departs—
Who hath not lost a friend?
There is no union here of hearts
That hath not here an end."
Then the thoughts of the days when Richard Ashton came wooing, of moonlight walks, of music and literature—these incidents of joyful days flitted before her, each for a moment, and then vanished away, like dissolving views. Some who sought her then were now opulent, filling positions of honor and great responsibility; and some of her associates who then envied her, because she was more sought after than they, were now presiding over palatial homes.
As these visions of the happy days of yore passed like fairy dreams before her she heaved an involuntary sigh as she passionately exclaimed: "Oh drink, thou hast been our curse; turning our happiness into misery; our Eden of bliss into a waste, weary wilderness of poverty and woe!"
"Mamma, mamma, may I tum, I have such a petty flower to show oo."
It was the voice of little Mamie, and, as her mother opened the door, she came in, an almost perfect picture of innocent beauty; as with eyes sparkling with delight she held up to her mother a large and beautiful pansy.
"Isn't that petty, mamma? and wasn't Eddie a dood boy to get it for me? Now, mamma, I'm dust going to save it for papa. Will you put it up for him?"
Mrs. Ashton hastily turned away her head, and wiped her eyes, so that her child might not see traces of her recent tears. She then turned, and taking Mamie in her arms brushed her golden curls, which, young as she was, hung down her back, falling in rippling waves of sunlight over her fair young form, and assured her she would put away the flower for dear papa.
Little Mary, or as they called her Mamie, was born, as we have already noticed, a short time after they came to Rochester. She was a beautiful child, and in some respects seemed to resemble each of her parents; for she had the complexion and large, dreamy eyes of her mother and the features of her father. And in disposition and mental characteristics she also inherited qualities from both father and mother; for she possessed the sprightly animation of the former which ever and anon bubbled over in gentle, kindly mischief. While she, also, possessed the guileless trustfulness of the latter, and seemed never so happy as when she nestled peacefully in the arms of one she loved, and listened to a simple story of the good in other days, or was charmed by some beautiful song or hymn, which it was her delight to help sing.
As one looked at her fair young face—her sunny curls and regular classic features—either sparkling with animation or melting with tenderness, they wondered not that she was the pet of home, and generally beloved, for with such beauty and such gentle witcheries she could not fail to win hearts.
"Mamma," she said, after her mother had kissed her, "Why has papa don away? I 'ove my papa ever so much, and I asked him, before he went away, if he 'oved oo and Eddie and Allie, and he taid he did, and that he 'oved me, his 'ittle sunbeam, too, and ett he has don and left us all. I am so sorry papa has don."
As Mamie said this the tears began to glisten in her eyes, and then sparkling for a moment, in their blue settings, ran in pearly drops down over her cheeks. Her mother snatched her closely to her to quiet her sobbings; but, in a moment or two, was weeping in sympathy with her child.
"My darling," she said, "papa has gone away to find another home for us all, and after awhile he will come back for us, then my little Mamie will be her papa's sunbeam again."
"But, mamma, I don't want to go, I dust want to 'top where we are now, for Eddie was saying, yesterday, that papa was in Tanada, and that he was coming over after us. And he taid, mamma that Tanada was so cold we would not have any petty flowers there, and I don't want to leave all my petty flowers. I dust want to stay here in our nice home."
"Eddie should not talk so to his little sister," said her mother, "and I do not think we will find Canada much colder than this country. God will take care of us there, Mamie, if we are good and pray to Him, and He will also take care of papa if we ask Him to do so."
"Will He, mamma?" said Mamie, "den I will ask Him."
She knelt down, and clasping her tiny hands looked heavenward with sweet trustfulness as she murmured: "Dod bless my papa, and take care of him." And then she added—the thought seeming to come intuitively to her mind. "O, Dod, don't let my papa drink, taus den he is tross to my dear mamma and to Eddie and Allie; and he don't 'ove mamma den. Dust let him come home nice.—Amen."
Her mother was strangely moved at her child's prayer and murmured, Amen. And as the little innocent knelt there, a perfect picture of seraphic beauty, purity, innocence and faith, the thought of the poet came to her mind—
"O man, could thou in spirit kneel beside that little child;
As fondly pray, as purely feel, with heart as undefiled;
That moment would encircle thee with light and love divine,
Thy soul might rest on Deity, and heaven itself be thine."
And she prayed that God might ever keep her as innocent and pure.