CHAPTER XXV.
SEEKING FOR HELP.
Catharine was content in her new home. She had been so completely worn out with suffering and excitement, that any place, which insured quiet and rest, was a heaven to her.
Besides, she found objects of interest in that humble shanty that won her thoughts quietly from her own grief. She was so young and naturally so hopeful, that anything calculated to arouse affection in her nature visited it with soft healing. The nurse’s child awoke her heart from its sorrow with a strange influence, thrilling and sweet. She would hold it fondly on her lap, smooth its silken hair with her fingers, kiss its soft lips, its sleepy eyes, and its plump little foot, with an outgush of tenderness that seemed more than motherly. With all her gratitude to Mary Margaret, she could not so caress and love her loud-voiced, hearty little boy. She could not even grieve over the loss of her own child, with that little creature lifting its soft, wondering eyes to her own so earnestly.
Catharine loved to sit in the back door of the shanty—with the mock orange-vine and the morning-glories framing her in, as if she had been one of those golden-haired Madonnas that Guido loved to paint, creations that seem half air, half light—and caress the child, that was joy enough for her.
Mary Margaret being out most of the day, Catharine was left to the healthful influences of these tender associations. She was still very pale, and her eyes were circled with shadows, like those that trembled upon the wall from the half-open morning-glories, but she began to feel less desolate, and as if neither God nor man had entirely forsaken her.
With all her gentleness and delicacy, Catharine had become precocious in many things. She had many firm and settled thoughts beyond her years. Suffering had done a holy work with that young soul, and while the dews of first youth were on her nature, she was rich in pure womanly principle. She felt that it was wrong to remain a burden on her poor friends. Yet when she thought of going, a pang smote her, and it seemed as if her young heart must be uprooted afresh before she could give the child up.
Poor, motherless girl, and childless mother! She was not yet eighteen, and so delicate that it seemed as if a blast of air might prostrate her.
Two weeks passed in comparative tranquillity. No one inquired after Catharine; and she might have been dead for all her former friends knew or cared about the matter. Her aunt believed her to be with Madame De Marke, and that wicked old woman neither asked, nor cared, what had befallen her.
One morning, before Mary Margaret went out to her day’s work, Catharine spoke of her determination to find employment for herself. At first, the kind woman objected, but her good sense directly came into action, and she saw how impossible it was that a creature so superior should be long content with a life in her humble abode.
But what could Catharine do? She understood a little of millinery and ornamental needle-work, but well she knew the precariousness of resources like these to a homeless female. One thing was certain, she must henceforth depend on herself. Her relatives had forsaken her. The husband whom she had so fatally trusted was gone, she knew not whither—gone, she had been told, to avoid her, and to cast off the responsibilities which were to burden her so fatally. This was the bitter drop in Catharine’s cup. This was the arrow that pierced her, wherever she turned. She could not entirely believe evil of the man she had loved, but her soul was troubled with a doubt more painful than certainty.