CHAPTER XIII.
FRIENDS IN NEED.
“He that hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto the Lord; and that which he hath given will He pay him again.”—Prov. xix. 17.
Alie went to the place of meeting early one morning, but Madge was not beneath the old thorn-tree. Alie did not hear the gipsy girl’s accustomed greeting as she ran forward barefoot to meet her. Alie called her name softly, but no voice replied. She looked in the direction where the tent had been pitched; the tent was gone, there was nothing now to obstruct her view to the very end of the green lane! Alie felt sad, and yet thankful. What a short time had been given to her in which she could serve poor Madge! But that short time had not been wasted; she had caught the opportunity on the wing, before, as she believed, it had passed away for ever.
“But I should have liked to have seen her once more. I should have liked to have said ‘good-bye,’ and to have given her something to keep as a remembrance of me,” thought Alie, as she slowly walked along the lane towards the blackened spot which showed where the gipsies had lighted their fire.—“Perhaps we shall never look on each other’s faces again, until we meet before the great white throne. Oh! may we both be on the right hand then. She did love to listen when I told her of the Lord; and He can keep her from temptation, and guide her to Himself. She promised to repeat, morn and night, that little prayer which I taught her. I think that she will do so, if only for my sake; for I am sure that she loved me—poor unhappy little Madge. Oh! if I had had time to teach her a few verses more.”
THE GREEN LANE.
Alie was startled from her reflections by a sound something between a sob and a cry, which came from some place near the spot where the tent of the gipsies had stood. She stopped, listened, and heard it again. The voice was like that of one in bitter distress. Alie fancied that she could distinguish her own name! Doubtless it was poor Madge who was crying; but if she were there, so might her parents be also, and Alie was terrified at the idea of meeting the gipsies in so lonely a spot, quite out of sight of any dwelling. She could see nothing of them as she looked down the lane: but again and again rose that wailing cry.
“It is that fear of man which would keep me now from doing to others as I would they should do unto me,” thought Alie; and, mustering all her resolution, she ventured further into the lane. She had not proceeded many steps when she heard the voice of Madge distinctly exclaim, in tones of tremulous joy, “Oh! it is you, Alie! it is you at last! I thought that you would come to the thorn; but, oh, I was so afraid that you would not hear my crying—that you would go away, and leave me here to starve!”
“Where are you?” exclaimed Alie, looking about her in surprise at not seeing the speaker.