CHARITY THROWN AWAY.
A gay carriage rolled noiselessly by, with a beautiful girl within, well wrapped in fur and cloak, whilst the snow was dashed from the rapid wheels like white dust. She saw, through the dim light, the weary, thin-clad boy, as he stopped, with face bent aside to the flake-burdened blast, to gaze at the smoking horses, as they plunged through the fast-deepening sheet. She dropped the sash, and threw the boy a coin. It sank from her warm hand deep into the drifted snow. It might have brought him bread and a cheering fagot, but the smitten child never found it. The snow closed over the coveted prize, while the blast grew keener.
On, on toiled the beggar boy, through drift and darkness, more weary as night gathered on. Thus is it ever with the humble poor; their load grows heavier as life lessens. No light or warming hearth is there—things that make house a home—to welcome the wandering boy.
The clock had just struck two as I was summoned to the house of Mrs. T. The same carriage that, in the evening, had borne the beautiful young girl, awaited at my door, with its impatient horses snorting against the frosted air. A few minutes later I entered the house. Mrs. T. met me in the hall, with her face deadly pale, and manner much excited. Her singular nervousness had before struck me on my visits, whenever her daughter ailed. She informed me that her “darling Emily” was very ill with a high fever.
We entered the chamber. The young girl lay with her head turned aside upon the pillow, her golden-brown hair scattered in wild profusion upon its white cover, while the nurse was gently moistening the fevered palm of her outstretched hand. The pulse was beating wildly at the wrist and temples, and fever heat glowed from her lustrous eyes. Whilst the nurse held the light to her face, the traces of dried tears were revealed upon her suffused cheeks.
“Heartache surely is here,” I said to myself.
There was something in the whole appearance of my patient that excited my curiosity and surprise. Only eight or ten hours had passed since she, from her carriage, had thrown the snow-claimed alms to the beggar boy, and now a high fever was running hot through every artery of her body.
Silently seated by the bedside, after administering a cooling draught I awaited and watched for the changes that might ensue. Her mother sat near the fire, its blaze lighting up every feature of her once beautiful face, which still remained very pale. In all my intercourse with Mrs. T., I never before had so prolonged an opportunity of examining in detail the expression of her countenance. The longer I gazed on her, the more satisfied I became that she had not passed through life without a fearful history.
It was this sensation which struck me when I first became acquainted with her. A few vague rumors had floated about relative to her history; that a strange desertion of her husband had taken place, and that he afterwards was found drowned in the river, near his residence, and that by his death Mrs. T. had become possessed of an immense estate. These stories had, however, soon subsided; and as her means were ample, and her charities liberal, the gossips of the town quietly dropped the past, and speculated upon the future, as should all respectable gossips.
The voice of the patient diverted my thoughts; a few words were murmured, and then the lips pressed tremblingly together, and the tear-drops again started to her cheeks. Suddenly springing up in bed, and threading her long, curling hair through her slender fingers, she exclaimed, in a thrilling, delirious tone,—