While Persis and Ned Franks are conversing together in their little parlor, we will turn for a short time to Norah, whom we shall find in their little garden, with a full glow of the setting sun around her, as she is stooping over a flower-bed busily engaged in weeding.
Even in the bright season of spring, even in the cheerful home of the Frankses, since her return from London, the time had passed wearily and anxiously to Norah. She shrank from notice, she dreaded questions, and, though nothing was said to make her feel that it was so, she knew that her maintenance must be a burden on the slender income of her uncle. The accommodation in the school-house was small. Persis, at some inconvenience, had given up her only store-closet to serve as a sleeping-room for Norah; and if the good housewife cheerily laughed over her own little difficulties in finding a place where she might stow away jams and bacon, and Franks declared that the closer people were packed together, the less danger there was of their chafing one another, Norah felt that the little domestic circle had been complete without her, and that her pale, sad face could not add to the cheerfulness of a married pair. Even the food of which the orphan guest was so kindly pressed to partake freely must make a sensible difference in the household expenses of those who had so little to spare. Norah longed for the means of earning her own bread; but employment in needle-work, even had she been clever at sewing, could scarcely be procured in the retired neighborhood of Colme. The young girl would gladly have gone again into service; but to whom could she apply for a character? How often, with bitter regret for the past, did Norah ask herself that question? Her only resource was prayer. She entreated him whose mercy, as she trusted and believed, had forgiven her sin, to open for her some door of usefulness, to give her some means of honestly earning a livelihood. Norah was ready to take the lowest place, the hardest work, the smallest wages, if she might but struggle back to a position in which she could again maintain herself by her labor.
As Norah rose from her stooping posture, she saw Mrs. Curtis, the vicar's wife, approaching towards her. The lady, who was the general counsellor and friend of the villagers of Colme, had always shown kindness to Norah, and to be spoken to by her would, in former times, have called up a beaming smile in the face of the girl; but Norah now met the vicar's wife with a feeling of shame and fear.
"Good-evening to you, Norah Peele; I am glad to find you alone, for I wish a little quiet talk with you," said Mrs. Curtis. "Let us go to yon arbor at the end of the garden, where we shall be undisturbed."
Norah followed the lady along the narrow gravel path which Franks had bordered with box. The poor girl dreaded the interview before her, but silently prayed, as she walked along, that she might be enabled to answer truthfully whatever painful questions might be asked her.
When the arbor was reached, Mrs. Curtis seated herself on the rustic bench, which was the handiwork of the one-armed sailor. No one could approach the spot unseen; the lady had chosen it in order that the conversation between herself and Norah might not be interrupted or overheard.
"Norah," said Mrs. Curtis, "my housemaid is about to leave me to be married to Rob Gates, the nephew of the miller. I am therefore looking out for a trustworthy girl to take her place. Knowing both you and your family for so long as I have done, it is natural that my thoughts should turn towards you."
The girl's heart throbbed fast with a newly awakened hope which she yet scarcely dared to indulge.
"But," continued the lady, (what a terrible word was that but!) "I cannot offer you a situation without a clear knowledge of the cause of your leaving your last one. The information which has reached me may or may not be correct. Many innocent persons are hardly judged; some are the victims of a slander. A mistress may be injudicious, or she may be unjust to her servants."
"Oh, no, Mrs. Lowndes was not unjust, at least not in sending me away," said Norah, the large tears gathering in her downcast eyes. "She was kind and generous, and good to me, till—till"—a smothered sob closed the sentence.