The saddened tone of Lottie as she uttered the last sentence reminded Isa of what Mr. Eardley had told her of the early trials of this more than orphan girl. A brutal father, addicted to intemperance, had made the hovel in which Lottie had passed the first years of her life, a den of poverty and woe. Then this father, unworthy of the name, had absconded, deserting an unhappy wife and two children, the elder of whom, a boy, from physical infirmities and dulness of mind, was yet more helpless than the poor little girl. Mr. Eardley had been for years the earthly protector of the family; he had procured employment for Deborah Stone, had had her children taught in his school, had, as we know, found a place for Lottie as soon as she was able to take one, and had often put such work in the way of her brother as the poor lad was not incapacitated from performing.
“And did you find the Midianite Distrust in your own soul also?” asked Isa.
The mournful tone of Lottie changed to a cheerful one as she made reply, “Oh! as mother says, who’s to trust God if we don’t, when He has helped us through such a many troubles, and given us such kind friends? Only—just—sometimes,” she added more slowly, “when I thinks of poor father, then a feeling will come; but I s’pose it’s wrong—God is so good!” and she sighed.
Isa perceived that the shadow of the poor girl’s great trial lay on her young heart still.
“You can always pray for your father, Lottie.”
“I do, Miss Isa, I do, morning and evening, and so does mother; and surely God will hear!” cried the girl, brightening up at the thought. “He knows where bees father, though we don’t; and maybe He will bring him back to us at last.”
There was something touching to Isa in the clinging affection of the young creature towards a parent whom she could not honour, and whom she had so little cause to love.
“And did you find any Discontent lurking within?” inquired the lady, returning to the point of conversation from which she had diverged.
“Discontent!” repeated Lottie, opening her black eyes wide at the question; “O Miss Isa, how could I—with meat every day, and a whole sovereign every quarter? That would be ungrateful indeed! Ah! if you knew how we lived here at Wildwaste when I was little, in the cottage that’s been pulled down—close by the ‘Jolly Gardener’ it was, where the school is a-standing now! We’ve been half the day—mother, brother, and I—without breaking a bit of bread; and we might have been the other half too,” added Lottie, naively, “had not Mrs. Holdich been so kind, and the tall gentleman from the Castle, bless him! he brought us nice things from his own table under his cloak.”
“Do you speak of Mr. Madden?” asked Isa, with a little tremulousness in her tone.