Elsie's scholarship

by Emma Leslie

Mr. Perceval spoke as kindly and tenderly as possible; but Mrs. Winn was feeling weak and spent, and could not stay her tears now she once began to cry.

"Can you tell me your sister's name, and where, she lives, and I will send for her to come to you?"

But Mrs. Winn could only shake her head. "I must look for it," she murmured.

"Well, mind you have it ready for me by the time I come to-morrow. Now, put away all false pride in the matter, and try to think that your sister would be glad to help you, if she only knew that you were in such straits. For if we will not let our friends know that we are in need of their assistance, how are they to do their duty? Try to think of it this way, Mrs. Winn,—that by keeping your trouble to yourself, as you are doing, you are denying to your sister a right she possesses to be your helper; that is, of course, if she is likely to be in a position to help you."

"Oh, yes; her husband was a wealthy man. That was how the trouble began between us. She made what the world called a good match. Her husband had plenty of money when she married, while I—well—everybody said, I married beneath me, because my dear husband was only a clerk."

"Ah, well, there might have been faults on both sides, Mrs. Winn. Your friends might think you were wilfully rushing into poverty."

"That's what they said," interrupted the widow; "and that is why I have kept out of their way. I did not want them to know that we got a little poorer every year."

"Of course not; that was quite right. And while your husband lived, and could work for you, you did not need their help. But now, for your children's sake, it is your duty to overcome this angry feeling, and the pride that makes you wish to hide your poverty from those whose duty it is to help you. That is how you should look at it, Mrs. Winn. You have a brave little daughter, who did not shrink from doing her duty, when she knew what it was; though it must have been a hard pinch to give up that scholarship, and all it meant to her. Now she has done this, you should do your duty for her, and ask this wealthy sister to do hers. For if she has the means, she ought to help you, because you are her sister, and need it; and both ought to forgive and forget the past, with its pride and bitterness, and all that grew out of that, and the wilfulness too."

Mrs. Winn did not know herself how strong this pride and resentment was in her, until after the doctor had gone; and she went upstairs and unlocked her desk, to find a letter that had her sister's address. Then, as it seemed to her, the love and reverence she felt for her husband's memory, rose up to forbid her writing to one who never understood his worth, or spoke a kind word of him. And she almost resolved to tear up the letter, and put it out of her power, or Dr. Perceval's either, to let her sister know the straits to which she was reduced.

But just then Elsie called her from the next room, and she ran in to see what she wanted. "Oh, mother, I should like a cup of coffee and a piece of nice brown buttered toast," said the girl.