Time crept on, blanching Lucy’s cheek to deadly paleness, tinting Fanny’s with a lovelier rose; thinning Lucy’s silver hair, piling the golden clusters round Fanny’s ivory brow; bending Lucy’s shrunken limbs, rounding Fanny’s into symmetry and grace.
True, the child never left the attic; but what place, how circumscribed soever, will not Love beautify and brighten? True, “mamma’s” pictured semblance responded not to the little upturned face and lisping lips, but who shall say that age and infancy were the only tenants of that lonely room?
Fanny knew that she had a “papa” somewhere in the house, but “papa” was always “sick,” or “busy,” so grandmamma said; that must be the reason why he never came up to see his little girl. Sometimes Fanny amused herself by climbing up to the little window, overlooking the square where a silvery fountain tossed its sparkling diamonds to the sun, who turned them all sorts of pretty colors, and sent them quivering back again. Little Fanny liked that! Then she saw little children playing round the fountain, sailing their tiny boats on its bosom, and clapping their hands gleefully when they rode safely into port. Great shaggy Newfoundland dogs, too, jumped into the water, and swam, with their black noses just above the surface, and ever and anon sprang out upon the mossy bank, shaking their shaggy coats upon the more dainty ones of mamma’s little pets, quite regardless of lace, silk, or ribbon. It was a pretty sight, and little Fanny wanted to go to the fountain too; but grandmamma was so feeble, and she had so much running to do up and down stairs, that she had no strength left to walk; and then grandmamma had to make all Fanny’s little dresses, and keep them tidy and nice; and by the time the sun moved off of mamma’s picture in the afternoon, she was quite ready to go to bed with little Fanny.
Poor old grandmamma! Fanny handed her her spectacles, and a cricket to put her poor tired feet upon, and picked up the spools of cotton when they rolled upon the floor, and learned too to thread her needles quite nicely, for grandmamma’s eyes were getting dim; and sometimes Fanny would try to make the bed, but her hand was so tiny that she could not even cover one of the small roses of its patch-work quilt. Dear little thing! He who blessed little children, recorded of her, “She hath done what she could.”
One day Fanny heard a great noise—a great bumping and tumbling, as if some heavy body were falling down the stairs. Then she heard a deep groan—and then such a shriek! If she lived to be as old as grandma, that shriek would never go out of her ears; then there was a great running to and fro, Patrick and Bridget wrung their hands, and said ochone! ochone! and then grandmamma’s face grew very white, as she took Fanny by the hand and hurried down stairs; and when they got into the lower entry, there lay a gentleman very still on the floor. A beautiful lady was kneeling on the floor beside him, chafing his temples—but it was of no use; feeling of his pulse—but it was quite still. Then the beautiful lady shrieked again—oh, so dreadfully! and then she fell beside him like one dead.
Fanny’s grandma whispered to her, that the gentleman “was her papa,” and that he had fallen down stairs and broken his neck—grandma did not say that he was drunk when he did it. Fanny crept up to him, for she had wanted so much to see her papa—so she put her little rosy face close to his, and said, “Wake up, please, papa, and see me.” But he did not open his eyes at all; then she put her hand on his face, and then she seemed frightened—her little lip quivered, and she clung to her grandmother’s dress—then some men came and carried papa up stairs, and the maid-servants laid the beautiful lady on the sofa, in the parlor; and she and grandma went back up into the attic—and all that day, grandma did not seem to see mamma’s picture at all; and when Fanny came up to her, she wept and said, “God help you—my poor lamb.”
CHAPTER XIII.
The bell sounded at Bluff Hill Prison, to call the prisoners to their tasks. They passed out from their cells and crossed, two by two, the prison-yard to their workshops. Percy and a stout negro were the last couple in the file. Just as they were about passing in, the African, who had received the punishment of the douche the day previous, for dilatoriness at his task, sprang upon the officer in waiting, and seized him by the throat. Percy, whose pugilistic science was a match for the African’s muscle, grappled with and secured him in an instant, receiving, as he did so, a severe bite from the fellow’s teeth, in his left shoulder. The negro was handcuffed, and Percy carried to the hospital, to have his wound dressed. The officer, in the flush of his gratitude, assured him, as he left, that the case should be laid before the governor, and would undoubtedly result in his pardon.
Percy’s eye brightened, as he bowed his head in reply, but in truth he took no credit for the deed; it was only following an irresistible impulse to save the life of a fellow-creature.