Our Winnie, and The Little Match Girl

by Evelyn Everett-Green

But a little more thinking brought other considerations.

“Mamma was sorry—I think she cried. I’m afraid she isn’t coming with me, because she talked about losing me. I suppose nurse will take me—that will be next best; and mamma could not be spared. Papa wants her and the boys, and there are the servants and the house. Oh no, they could not possibly spare her. I must try to be brave, and not to cry and make her more sorry. I won’t seem to mind leaving her, if I can help it, though it will be very, very hard; and I will try to get better as fast as ever I can, so as to come back soon strong and well as Charley did when he had measles, and nurse took him to the seaside.

“I wonder where I am going—a good way off, I think, because I don’t think mamma would have cried if it had been only a little way or for a little while. Perhaps I am going where the swallows go—perhaps I shall see them again. I should like to do that. I think I am going when they go—I will try to get well to come back when they come. That would be very nice, for I think they would miss me when they began to build their nests; and I don’t think I could do without mamma longer than that—Oh no, I must come back when the swallows come.”

Winifred was smiling now; but by-and-by her face grew grave.

“I wonder if people will miss me when I am gone. I wonder if they will be sorry. Mamma will, I know, but is there any one else? I should like to think some of them would miss me and want me to come back; but—but—I’m not sure that they would!” and here the child’s face grew rather red.

Children all have their faults, and Winifred was no exception to this rule. Perhaps there were excuses to be made for this little girl, because her bad health had made it needful for her to be very quiet and rather idle, and because, with all her faults, she was always gentle and docile; but at the same time Winifred was selfish, and she was more idle than she need have been; and when she began to think whether people would miss her, she could not help remembering many little things which she did not quite like to think about.

Charley and Ronald were very fond of their little sister, and would have liked to spend a good deal of their spare time in the nursery, which they had once shared all together; but since Winnie’s illness the nursery had been given up entirely to her service, and she had not failed to assert her right as mistress of her domain.

It was often quite true that the noise the boys made at play tried her head and made it ache; but there were other days when she could have borne the noise quite well, only she did not care to let the boys in because she felt more inclined to be quiet. Then she never tried to do any little services for them, or for any one else, thinking nobody could expect it of her when she had so little strength.

Winifred was a gentle, loveable child, in spite of her tendency to selfishness, and everybody seemed fond of her. Indeed, it was not every one who knew what her chief faults were. Charley and Ronald never thought for a moment that she was selfish, and would have been indignant if any one had called her so; but at the same time they knew it was no good ever asking Winifred to do anything for them.

Perhaps Mrs. Digby and nurse knew best where the gentle child’s weakness lay; but it had not been very easy in her present state of health and spirits to make her see her own faults in the proper light.