“Those are tears of joy; no garland can be finished without them.”
The child wandered round the chamber, and saw that almost all the wreaths had some tears of joy and some of sorrow; but she came at last to one that was quite full of tears of sorrow and in it no tears of joy at all, while on it was a name, “Peggy the Beggar.” [[235]]
Scarcely had her eyes fallen upon the name than she awoke; awoke, and beheld bending over her a lady with a lovely face; but she looked proud and stern, and the little wanderer instinctively shrank away from her and crouched closer to the wall.
“How very tiresome that this wretched child should choose my porch, of all places, to creep into for shelter,” cried the lady, in a cold, unfeeling tone. “Yet I cannot turn the unfortunate thing away on such a night as this. It’s a poor Christmas indeed for the poor child,” she added, in a more tender way. “Here, Smith, take up this little beggar and carry her to the kitchen, give her something to eat, and tell Jane to put some dry things on her.”
A tall servant came forward and lifted the ragged bundle of humanity in his arms as tenderly as a mother would have done. The man had just such another little girl at home, and his heart yearned with sympathy for the outcast as he bore her along the great hall of the house. Certainly the place was strange to the child; but as in her dream she seemed to remember everything, so now it appeared to her that the objects upon which she gazed had been familiar to her a long, long time ago, and her dream came back [[236]]to her so vividly that she cried out aloud, “Oh, Frank! Frank! Dear brother, where are you hiding? Do come to me. Come to sister Nellie. I am not playing now.”
The stern lady had followed her servant with his living burden; but when that cry reached her she stopped short, and grasped at the wall for support. What sudden spasm caused the beautiful, haughty face to grow instantly pale, and the tall form to bend trembling down as if struck with palsy?
“Oh, Frank, come to sister Nellie. Dear brother, come.”
With a wild, hysterical sob the stately figure bowed lower yet, and pressed her arms upon her throbbing bosom as if each of the little outcast’s words had been cruel dagger-thrusts that were piercing her through and through.
Coldness, pride, the vigorous will, that moulds martyrs and devils alike, was strong within the woman, yet the combination of all three had no power against that weak out-cry—“Come to sister Nellie, Frank!”
Ere the low, faint wail had died out, the proud lady had snatched the poor child to her bosom, and covering the hot, unwashed face with passionate kisses, cried aloud,—