They stepped in together—the man and his wife—honest, healthy country-folk. She—rosy and plump; he—stalwart, broad-chested, and strong-limbed, as God intended man and woman to be. I might not have noticed them particularly, but they had a baby; and such a baby! None of your flabby city abortions; but a flesh-and-blood baby—a baby to make one’s mouth water—ay, and eyes, too! Such a baby as might have been born in the Garden of Eden, had the serpent never crept in; born of parents fed on strawberries and pomegranates—pure in soul, pure in body, and healthy and vigorous as purity alone can be.
Such a baby! such eyes—such a skin—such bewildering lips—such a heaven-born smile; my eyes overflowed as I looked at it. I was not worthy to hold that baby, but my heart yearned for it, and I held out my hands invitingly.
See! the little trusting thing leaps from its father’s arms and sits smiling on my knee. Ah! little baby, turn away those soft blue eyes from mine; is it not enough that my soul is on its knees to you? Is it not enough, that for every bitter word wrung from my tortured soul by wrong and suffering, I could cry: “God be merciful to me a sinner?”
And yet, little baby, I was once like thee. Like thee, I stretched out the trusting hand to those who——ah, little baby—I am not like thee now; yet stay with me, and perhaps I shall be. Jesus “took a little child and set him in the midst.” Take hold of my hand, and lead me to heaven.
Going? then God be with thee, as surely as he has been with me, in thy pure presence. I shall see thee again, little baby, if I heed thy teachings; thou hast done thy silent mission.
FANNY FORD.
CHAPTER I.
It was a mad freak of dame Nature to fashion Mary Ford after so dainty a model, and then open her blue eyes in a tumble-down house in Peck-lane. But Mary cares little for that. Fortune has given her wheel a whirl since then, and Jacob Ford is now on the top. Mary sees the young and the old, the grave and the gay, the wise and the ignorant, smile on her sweet face; as she passes, men murmur “beautiful,” and women pick flaws in her face and figure. She can not sleep for serenades, and her little room is perfumed, from May to January, with the rarest of hot-house flowers. Lovers, too, come wooing by the score. And yet, Mary is no coquette; no more than the sweet flower, which nods, and sways, and sends forth its perfume for very joy that it blossoms in the bright sunshine, all unconscious how it tempts the passer-by to pluck it for his own wearing. A queenly girl was the tailor’s daughter, with her Juno-like figure, her small, well-shaped head, poised so daintily on the fair white throat; with her large blue eyes, by turns brilliant as the lightning’s flash, then soft as a moonbeam; with her pretty mouth, and the dimple which lay perdu in the corner, with the flossy waves of her dark brown hair; with her soft, white hands, and twinkling little feet; with her winsome smile, and floating grace of motion.