SNOW-WOMAN'S STORY.
By Miss Edgeworth.
"Yes, madam, I bees an Englishwoman, though so low now and untidy like—it's a shame to think of it—a Manchester woman, ma'am—and my people was once in a bettermost sort of way—but sore pinched latterly." She sighed, and paused.
"I married an Irishman, madam," continued she, and sighed again.
"I hope he gave you no reason to sigh," said Gerald's father.
"Ah, no, sir, never!" answered the Englishwoman, with a faint sweet smile. "Brian Dermody is a good man, and was always a koind husband to me, as far and as long as ever he could, I will say that—but my friends misliked him—no help for it. He is a soldier, sir,—of the forty-fifth. So I followed my husband's fortins, as nat'ral, through the world, till he was ordered to Ireland. Then he brought the children over, and settled us down there at Bogafin in a little shop with his mother—a widow. She was very koind too. But no need to tire you with telling all. She married again, ma'am, a man young enough to be her son—a nice man he was to look at too—a gentleman's servant he had been. Then they set up in a public-house. Then the whiskey, ma'am, that they bees all so fond of—he took to drinking it in the morning even, ma'am—and that was bad, to my thinking."
"Ay, indeed!" said Molly, with a groan of sympathy; "oh the whiskey! if men could keep from it!"
"And if women could!" said Mr. Crofton in a low voice.
The Englishwoman looked up at him, and then looked down, refraining from assent to his smile.
"My mother-in-law," continued she, "was very koind to me all along, as far as she could. But one thing she could not do; that was, to pay me back the money of husband's and mine that I lent her. I thought this odd of her—and hard. But then I did not know the ways of the country in regard to never paying debts."
"Sure it's not the ways of all Ireland, my dear," said Molly; "and it's only them that has not that can't pay—how can they?"
"I don't know—it's not for me to say," said the Englishwoman, reservedly; "I am a stranger. But I thought if they could not pay me, they need not have kept a jaunting-car."
"Is it a jaunting-car?" cried Molly. She pushed from her the chair on which she was leaning—"Jaunting-car bodies! and not to pay you!—I give them up intirely. Ill-used you were, my poor Mrs. Dermody—and a shame! and you a stranger! But them were Connaught people. I ask your pardon—finish your story."
"It is finished, ma'am. They were ruined, and all sold; and I could not stay with my children to be a burthen. I wrote to husband, and he wrote me word to make my way to Dublin, if I could, to a cousin of his in Pill-lane—here's the direction—and that if he can get leave from his colonel, who is a good gentleman, he will be over to settle me somewhere, to get my bread honest in a little shop, or some way. I am used to work and hard-*ship; so I don't mind. Brian was very koind in his letter, and sent me all he had—a pound, ma'am—and I set out on my journey on foot, with the three children. The people on the road were very koind and hospitable indeed; I have nothing to say against the Irish for that; they are more hospitabler a deal than in England, though not always so honest. Stranger as I was, I got on very well till I came to the little village here hard by, where my poor boy that is gone first fell sick of the measles. His sickness, and the 'pot'ecary' stuff and all, and the lodging and living ran me very low. But I paid all, every farthing; and let none know how poor I was, for I was ashamed, you know, ma'am, or I am sure they would have helped me, for they are a koind people, I will say that for them, and ought so to do, I am sure. Well, I pawned some of my things, my cloak even, and my silk bonnet, to pay honest; and as I could not do no otherwise, I left them in pawn, and, with the little money I raised, I set out forwards on my road to Dublin again, so soon as I thought my boy was able to travel. I reckoned too much upon his strength. We had got but a few miles from the village when he dropped, and could not get on; and I was unwilling and ashamed to turn back, having so little to pay for lodgings. I saw a kind of hut, or shed, by the side of a hill. There was nobody in it. It was empty of every thing but some straw, and a few turf, the remains of a fire. I thought there would be no harm in taking shelter in it for my children and myself for the night. The people never came back to whom it belonged, and the next day my poor boy was worse; he had a fever this time. Then the snow came on. We had some little store of provisions that had been made up for us for the journey to Dublin, else we must have perished when we were snowed up. I am sure the people in the village never know'd that we were in that hut, or they would have come to help us, for they bees very koind people. There must have been a day and a night that passed, I think, of which I know nothing. It was all a dream. When I got up from my illness, I found my boy dead—and the others with famished looks. Then I had to see them faint with hunger."
The poor woman had told her story without any attempt to make it pathetic, and thus far without apparent emotion or change of voice; but when she came to this part, and spoke of her children, her voice changed and failed—she could only add, looking at Gerald, "You know the rest, master; Heaven bless you!"
The Christmas Box