Fashion and Famine

by Ann S. Stephens

"You will be ashamed to have me coming to your house."

"Why so? I have been a quiet neighbor—an upright woman, so far as my light went, all my life. Why should I fear to have any one come to my own house?"

"But he will be ashamed of me! With a comfortable home, with friends, schooling—my own child, will learn to scorn and hate his mother!"

"No," answered Mrs. Gray, and her fine old face glowed with the pious prophecy—"no, because his mother will herself be a good woman, by-and-bye, it is sure. You are not dead at the root yet; want care, pruning, sunshine; will live to be a useful member of society before long—I have faith to believe it. God help you—God bless you. Now speak out at once, can I take the little fellow?"

"Yes," answered the woman, casting herself across the bed, and pressing both hands hard against her eyes—"yes, take him—take him!"

And so Mrs. Gray returned to her old homestead with three new inmates that night. It was a bleak, sharp day, and the maple leaves were whirling in showers about the old house as they drove up. A crisp frost had swept every flower from the beds, and all the soft tints of green from the door-yard and garden. Still there was nothing gloomy in the scene; the sitting-room windows were glowing with petted chrysanthemums, golden, snow-tinted and rosy, all bathed and nodding in a flood of light that poured up from the bright hickory-wood fire.

Robert had ridden on before the rest, bearing household directions from Mrs. Gray to the Irish servant girl. A nice supper stood ready upon the table, and a copper tea-kettle was before the fire, pouring out a thin cloud of steam from its spout, and starting off now and then in a quick, cheerful bubble, as if quite impatient to be called into active service. The fine bird's-eye diaper that flowed from the table—the little old-fashioned china cups, and the tall, plated candlesticks, from which the light fell in long, rich gleams, composed one of the most cheering pictures in the world.

Then dear old Mrs. Gray was so happy herself, so full of quiet, soothing kindness; the very tones of her voice were hopeful. When she laughed, all the rest were sure to smile, very faintly it is true; but still these smiles were little gleams won from the most agonizing grief. Altogether it was one of those evenings when we say to one another, "well, I cannot realize all this sorrow when the soul becomes dreamy, and softly casts aside the shafts of pain that goad it so fiercely at other times."

Little George fell asleep after tea, and Julia sat upon the crimson moreen couch under the windows, pillowing his head on her lap. The chrysanthemums rose in a flowery screen behind her, their soft shadows pencilling themselves on her cheek, and lying in the deeper blackness of her hair. Robert Otis spoke but little that night, and his dear, simple old aunt felt quite satisfied that the gaze which he turned so steadily toward the windows was dwelling in admiration on her flowers.

Be this as it may, his glance brought roses to that pale cheek, and kindled up the soft eyes that lay like violets shrouded beneath their thick lashes, with a brilliancy that had never burned there before. Julia's heart was far too sorrowful for thoughts of love, but there was something thrilling in her bosom deeper than grief, and more exquisite than any joy she had yet known.