That evening, when Cicely and her mother were warming their fingers over a fire of shavings, somebody knocked at the door.
Cicely blushed, when she saw the same gentleman she had seen at the school coming in, and looked anxiously about the room.
But Mr. Raymond was not looking at the room. I doubt if he saw anything, his eyes were so full of tears; but he held Cicely's mother by the hand several minutes, without speaking, and led her back to the chair with as much deference as if she had been a Duchess; and then Cicely found out, as they talked, that he was one of her father's old friends, and that, as sometimes happens, even between friends, they had a quarrel, and that then they were both mistaken enough to think that the most gentlemanly way to settle it, was to fight a duel; and that Mr. Raymond wounded her father, and had to go away as fast as possible, because there was so much noise about it, and that he had been very unhappy ever since, and would have given all he had to have brought him to life again, and that when he returned to his native city he had searched everywhere for Mrs. Hunt and Cicely, without finding them.
Well, now he wanted to support Cicely and her mother, but Mrs. Hunt did not like that. She forgave him the sorrow he had brought upon her because he had suffered so much; but she did not wish to be supported by him. However, she allowed him to find her a better place to live in, and get her some scholars to teach, who paid her high prices, and by and by Cicely helped her, and so they supported themselves; which is a far pleasanter way of living than to be dependent.
Cicely was never entirely cured of her lameness; but a physician made her much more comfortable; so she could walk by herself, with the help of a crutch; and Mrs. Hunt's last days, after all, were her best days; for, we should never know, my dear little pets, how brightly the sun shines, if it were never clouded.
[ THE LITTLE TAMBOURINE PLAYER. ]
I was sitting at my window one fine morning, at a farm house in the country, enjoying the sweet air, the soft blue clouds, and far-off hills, and watching the hay-makers in their large, straw hats, as they tossed the hay about, piled it upon the cart, or "raked after," or drove along home through the meadow, crushing the sweet breath from the clover blossoms that lay scattered in their path; and enjoying the song of the little robin in the linden tree opposite, who was thrilling my heart with his gushing notes.
A hand organ! What a nuisance! I fancied I had left them all behind me in the city, where one has such a surfeit of them. A hand organ in the country! where the little birds never make a discord, or charge us a fee, either! I'll get up and shut the window, or run off into the back woods, where such a thing as a hand organ was never heard of.