She was quite young,—not more than twenty. She was not that old man's wife, nor his daughter, nor his sister—but that was her home; and every day she went out with him and scraped the gutters, and refuse barrels, for old rags and papers; and then came back and emptied them out upon the garret floor at night, to pick them over. One whole year she had lived in that dirty den. How came she here? Listen, and I will tell you.
Mary once lived in the country, amid sweet, green fields, and clustering vines, and shady trees, and murmuring brooks. Her father was a good old farmer, as happy and contented with his few acres, as if he owned all Great Britain. Mary was his only child. Her mother died when she was a very little girl. Mary could not even remember how she looked; but her father often used to part her hair away from her white forehead, and say, "You are so like your mother, Mary"—and then Mary would run to the little mirror, over the dresser, and see a sweet pair of hazel eyes, and clusters of rich, brown hair falling over rosy cheeks and snowy shoulders; and then she'd toss her curls, and run back again to her father. Mary knew that her mother must have been very pretty.
Mary had an uncle, named Ralph. He was a bad man; but Mary's father was so good and honest himself, that it was hard to make him believe anybody was dis-honest. So he lent his brother large sums of money—(Ralph all the while promising to pay him at a certain time.) By and by, Ralph got away all his money, and the old farm, too, with all the cows and horses, and sheep and oxen; and then Mary's father worried so much that it made him very sick, and he soon died, leaving poor Mary without a penny in the world.
Uncle Ralph told her to go to the city, and he would find employment for her. But, after he got her there, he left her, and ran off; and poor Mary wandered about, quite heart-broken, till finally she found some coarse work to do, for which she was paid a trifle. She worked on with a brave heart, from day to day, for some weeks, till her employer died; and then, poor Mary knew not what to do,—nobody would employ her; and wicked people came and tempted her to sin, but Mary was good, and would not listen to them; and so she had to sell her clothes, one after another, as poor people do, till she had nothing left but the calico dress she had on. Even her under-clothes were gone, to pay the woman where she lived for her lodging. Alas! then poor Mary said, despairingly, "It is of no use for me to try to be honest any longer,"—and wicked people came again and tempted her, and nobody said, "Mary, struggle on, and I will help you; I will give you work to do." No; nobody said that; and everything looked dark and gloomy, and she forgot the little prayer she used to say at the old farmhouse, and made her home with wicked people; and the sweet, innocent look faded out from her soft blue eyes, and her heart grew hard—and wrong seemed right to poor Mary.
But sometimes Mary would wake at night, when all was still, and think of her childhood's home, under the linden trees; and of her good old father sitting in the porch, with the Bible on his knee, and the soft wind gently lifting the gray hair from his temples. Then she thought of the old church-yard, where her mother lay buried; and then she would press her hands tightly over her eyes, as if in that way she could shut out the torturing picture.
Mary could not bear such thoughts; they drove her almost wild. So, she drank wine (when she could get it) to drown her misery, and passed from one place of shelter to another, till at last she was glad of a home in the wretched garret where I found her.
When I spoke to Mary, she would not answer me; but looked me in the face as if she had been a stone image. She seemed to be afraid of the old man with whom she lived in the garret. Finding, after many earnest attempts, that I could do Mary no good, I left her; and soon after I heard that the old man had died, and that Mary had found a great many dollars in gold and silver, hid away in the garret, that he had earned picking up old rags.
So, Mary had all the old miser's money. But did it bring back the sweet, innocent look to her eyes? or take the misery out of her heart? No, no. She'd count over her gold, and say, with a horrid laugh, "It comes too late—too late!"
Oh! how I wished that all who give only——good advice! to a poor, tempted, starving, fellow creature, could have heard those dreadful words: "Too late,—too late!"