CHAPTER XI.
Madge Clifton’s Mother.
“What have you here, my brother?” asked Mrs. Carlton, as, in response to a message from Mr. Morris, she entered the kitchen, where poor Madge sat on a cricket before the range, looking, as Jessie afterwards said, “like a cat in a strange garret.”
“She’s a heap o’ rags and dirt, mem,” interposed the servant, who did not fancy the introduction of such an unsightly object into her prim-looking dominions.
“She is a poor, starving, and half-frozen girl, without any kind mother to take care of her and love her,” said Jessie, who feared, from her mother’s looks, that poor Madge was as unwelcome a guest to her, as she was to the kitchen-maid.
“She is a poor, little human waif, which has floated to our door on a sea of trouble and misfortune, sister,” observed Mr. Morris. “If opportunity is the gate of duty, then we owe it to this little girl, and to the Great Father who sent her to our doors, to relieve her wants, and if needs be, provide for her in future.”
This view of her relation to poor little Madge, somewhat softened Mrs. Carlton’s feelings. She was a very kind woman—in fact, she was nearly all heart—but she was fastidiously neat. Madge’s dirt and rags had repelled her at first sight; had shut out from her thoughts, for the moment, the recollection, that within that covering of filthy rags, there sat a human creature, which, had it been loved, and taught, and trained as her own child had been, might have been as loving, and as attractive as she. Her brother’s remark brought this view of Madge’s case before her, but did not wholly divest her of her first feelings. Jessie’s instincts led her to see that her mother was not quite prepared to take the outcast girl to her affections, and trembling for the result, she followed up her uncle’s plea, by saying:
“We found her cold and hungry, sitting under a stone wall, waiting for her mother, who has run away from her. If we had not brought her home, she would have frozen to death before morning. Wouldn’t that have been terrible, Ma?”