Wives and Widows; or, The Broken Life

by Ann S. Stephens

I ran out, seized upon my ruined doll, and came back to the house, crying over it in bitter grief. With trembling hands I unlocked my trunk, which was ready packed for travelling, and laid my broken treasure down among the most precious of my belongings. Just then Mrs. Pierce, our neighbor, came in, and in a half jeering, half kind way, expostulated with me for being such a little goose as to cry over a doll. This woman did not mean to be hard with me; far from it. Persons exist who are really kind-hearted, and seem cruel only because they cannot comprehend feelings utterly unknown to themselves. To me that doll was a type of my wrecked home; to her it was a combination of wax, sawdust, and leather, which a few dollars could at any time replace; besides that, she was put a little on the defensive by the fault of her child.

While she reasoned with me in her coarse kindness, which only wounded me deeper, a carriage had driven up, and two persons entered through the outer door, which had been left open by the little girl when she ran into the house to claim her mother's protection. I was sitting on the floor by my trunk, with both hands pressed to my face, sobbing piteously, when a sweet, strange voice checked the force of that woman's harangue; some one sank down to the floor by me, and I was all at once drawn into a close embrace.

"Don't cry, dear; it is all very sad, no doubt, but you are going with us, and to-morrow will be brighter."

I looked through a mist of tears that half blinded me, and saw the kindest, sweetest face that my eyes ever dwelt upon. It was that of a young woman, perhaps twenty or twenty-two years of age. "You must not feel yourself alone, dear child," she said, smoothing my hair with one hand, from which she had drawn off the glove.

"Oh," said Mrs. Pierce, pushing her daughter behind her, "you will never believe, marm, what she is crying about,—leaving home, you think it is? Oh, no; Miss is just taking on about a snip of a doll which my little girl here smashed a trifle, not meaning any harm, for children will be children, you know."

Here Mrs. Pierce patted her child's head, who cast sidelong glances at me and attempted to hide herself behind her mother's dress.

I looked up at the young lady, blushing red, and begging her in my heart not to think me so very ridiculous.

She smiled encouragingly, and turning upon Mrs. Pierce, said, very gravely,—

"I am surprised, madam, that you should think this a slight cause of grief. The smallest thing connected with the child's home must be dear to her."

Mrs. Pierce gave her head a fling, and muttered that she meant no harm. Miss was welcome to all her things back again; her children did not want them, not they.