“Is there any hope that you will aid us, sir?” said Turner, who used few words at any time, and evidently found the prolonged deliberations of the curate annoying.
“How can you ask?” replied the curate, gently. “I thought that was settled long ago. Were she the poorest vagrant that ever craved alms, I would do my best to aid her. As it is, can I ever forget yesterday? Mr. Turner, we sometimes do find angels in our path. This one we shall not entertain unawares, I know that she will prove a blessing to this desolated house.”
I dropped the flowers in my lap, and began to listen breathlessly. His beautiful faith in my future—his solemn trust in the good that was in me, fell like an inspiration upon my soul. From that hour my devotion to that good man and his daughter was a religious obligation—yes, a religious obligation before I knew what religion meant.
“Ah! if she had only been near to help us,” said the curate, and his eyes filled with those quiet, dewy tears with which God first waters a grief-stricken heart before he lets in the sunshine to which it has become unused—tears and sunshine that sometimes freshen the soul again with more than the brightness of childhood.
A strange thought came over me. I laid down the wreath and glided softly to the curate’s chair.
“They told us yesterday that she had gone to God,” I whispered, looking in his face with a sort of holy courage. “Is God so far off that she cannot help us?”
The curate gazed at me with a strange expression at first, then a beautiful smile parted his lips, and laying both hands on my head, he looked in my face still smiling, while his eyes slowly filled.
That moment little Cora came in. Her father reached forth his hand and drew her arm around my neck.
“Little children, love one another,” he said, and falling back in his chair, with the smile still upon his lips, he closed his eyes, but great tears forced themselves from under the lids and rolled slowly downward.
I drew back with the child, and with our arms interlinked we glided into the next room. I took up my crown of white blossoms, and, as if she read the thought in my bosom, Cora whispered, “Mamma, is it for her?” We stole through the parlor again, and went out. The curate sat with his eyes closed, and Turner had an elbow on each knee, with both hands supporting his forehead.