THE QUARREL.
It was the old dame that caused the sisters' quarrel. A few miles from the cabin she appeared, creeping through the dusty road, with a bundle of sticks three times as big as herself on her head.
"Pretty well!" exclaimed Maud. "The old creature could not find strength enough to walk a little way with me; but she can pick up sticks all day for herself, and carry home more than I could even lift."
The dame made no reply; perhaps she did not hear the beauty's words; but Maud was so vexed that she brushed roughly past, and upset all her sticks, and the poor old dame in the midst of them.
The fairy lifted her wrinkled arm, which was covered with bleeding scratches, and shook her finger angrily at Maud, who only laughed, and said, "It is good enough for you; take care, next time, how you stand in my way. I am the one to be angry, after you've scattered your sharp old sticks all over the road to fray my new silk stockings. Come, Daisy, make a path for me through them."
Daisy helped the dame to her feet again, and wiped away the dust and blood, and bound the arm up with her own handkerchief, and then began patiently to pick up all the sticks, and fasten them in a bundle.
She did this while Maud and the fairy were quarrelling and reproaching each other. We could often make up for a fault or accident in the time which we spend mourning over it and deciding whose was the fault.
Maud, in her heart, was not sorry for what her sister had now done, because she feared the fairy, and knew, if she went too far in offending her, that she might never appear again; and then Miss Maud would eat coarse food, and wear shabby clothes, like her sister Daisy.
Still she pretended to be angry, and scolded Daisy well for undoing what she had done, and comforting the old woman when she chose to punish her.
Yet more vexed was she when Daisy took the sticks on her own head; for the dame seemed tired and faint, and trembled like a leaf from the fright and pain of her fall.
Maud drew herself up haughtily, and asked if she was expected to walk in a public road in company with a lame old hag and a fagot girl. Her eyes flashed, and the color glowed in her delicate cheeks, as she spoke; Daisy thought she had never seen her sister look so beautiful, and even took out the glasses that she might look more closely at the handsome face.
Alas, what a change! Serpents seemed coiling and hissing about Maud's breast; her eyes were like the eyes of a wolf; the color on her cheeks made Daisy think of the fires she had seen burning so far down in the centre of the earth; and the ivory whiteness of her forehead was the dead white of a corpse.
It was not strange that, Maud's beauty gone, her sister grew less submissive; for Daisy, even with her spectacles, had found nothing except beauty to love in her sister. She thought a lovely heart must be hidden somewhere underneath the lovely face.
But now she had looked past the outside, and all was deformed and dreadful.
"I should like to know if you mean to answer," said Maud pettishly; "I told you either to throw down the sticks, or else I would walk home alone."
"I must help the poor dame; and as for our walk, we both know the way," was Daisy's quiet answer.
So they parted; and Daisy began to cheer the dame, who groaned dreadfully, by telling of all the fine things at the fair, and the use she had made of her spectacles, and how grateful she must always be for such a wondrous gift.
It pleased the dame to have her glasses praised; and so she forgot to limp and grumble about her wounds, and walked on gayly enough by Daisy's side, telling sometimes the wisest, and sometimes the drollest, stories she had ever heard.
But their mirth was interrupted by the sound of sobs; and Daisy's quick eyes discovered, sitting among the bushes by the way, a little girl, all rags and dust, crying as if her heart would break.
"Never mind her; she will get over it soon enough," said the dame.
"I wonder how you would have liked it, had I said that about you, an hour ago," thought Daisy, but made no reply, except to turn and ask the child what she could do for her.
"O, give me food, for I am starved, and clothes, for I am cold, and take me with you, for I am so lonely," sobbed the child.
"Then don't cry any more, but take my hand; and here are some wild grapes I picked just now—taste how fresh and sweet they are."
The little girl laughed for joy, with the tears still glistening on her face, and soon leaving Daisy's hand, skipped about her, flying hither and thither like a butterfly, filling her hands with flowers, and then coming back, to look up curiously in the strange old face of the dame.
"You are a good soul, after all," said the fairy, when Daisy returned to her side. "See how happy you have made that little wretch!"
"Yes, and how easily, too! O, why do not all people find out what a cheap comfort it is to help each other? I think, if they only knew this, that every one would grow kind and full of charity."
Daisy did not dream that the child listened, or would understand what she was saying; but the little girl, tears springing into her eyes again, answered softly, "O, no, not all."
"Why, have you found so many wicked people, my poor child?"
"Perhaps they are not wicked; but they are not kind;" and the girl's voice grew sadder. "Some time before you came, a beautiful lady passed; she was not dressed like you, but a hundred times handsomer; and I thought she would have ever so much to give away; so I asked her for a penny to buy bread."
"And did she give you one?" asked Daisy, who saw that the lady must have been her sister Maud.
"Not she; she called me names, and pushed me away so roughly that I fell into a bunch of nettles; and they stung till it seemed as if bees were eating me up. Look there!"
So she held up her poor little arms, that were pinched with poverty, as the dame's with age; they were mottled, white and red or purple, with the nettle stings; and only looking at them made her cry again.
But Daisy comforted her. "There, I wouldn't mind; she did not mean to hurt you. And, besides, you must blame me; for I offended her, and made her cross. She is my sister."
"O, dear, then I don't want to go home and live with you; let me go back and die, if I must. That lady would beat me, and pull my hair, I know. When you met me, I was not crying for hunger, though I was so hungry, nor for cold, though my clothes were all worn out, but because she was so unkind. Don't make me live with her."
Here the fairy drew the little girl towards her, and whispered, "Daisy has to live with her, and be fretted at and worked hard all the time; if you go, Maud will have another to torment, and will leave her sister in peace sometimes."
Then the tears were dried at once; and the child, taking Daisy's hand, said firmly, "Wherever you lead me I will go."
Daisy never knew what made her change her mind, for she had not heard the fairy's whisper; but angels in heaven knew it, and saw how, at that moment, the child unconsciously stepped into one of the golden paths that lead to the beautiful city on high.
For no good deed, no good thought or intention even, is lost. Few, perhaps, behold them here; but hosts of the heavenly people may always be looking on.
And even if they were not, it is better to be good and kind: the good deed brings its own reward; it makes our hearts peaceful; it makes us respect ourselves, so that we can look serenely in the face of every one, and, if they blame us, answer, "I have done the best I could."