Ah—that was what she had been dreading, payment for her services, and they had been so slight, so interrupted by Charley's sickness, and so she told the captain with her usual ingenuousness, for she had begun to fear latterly that Captain Lucas had not needed them at all, and that his engagement with her was a delicate cover for his charity. But it was useless talking; the captain was as peremptory as if he were on quarter-deck among his sailors, instead of talking there in the cabin to a little woman four feet high; he said "he was in a hurry," he said (presenting her with Doctor Perry's roll of bills after he had himself paid her) that "that was a present from himself for Charley," and he said that as she was all alone, she must let an old man like him direct her where to find proper lodgings; so he penciled on a card the address of an old lady, whose quiet house he thought would just suit her; and then he said, kissing Charley, "God bless you both," and drew his hand across his eyes.
Good Captain Lucas! when was ever a sailor's heart callous to the touch of sorrow? May there not be something in the strong brave element on which he rides to quicken what is grand and noble in his nature?
CHAPTER XXXIV.
Rose found the new quarters to which Captain Lucas had directed her, very comfortable. Her French landlady seemed altogether too busy, attending to her domestic matters, and nursing her poodle, to trouble herself about Rose's private affairs. This of itself was an infinite relief, for she had learned to shrink from the scrutiny of strangers. Her apartment was furnished neatly, and Charley's delight was unbounded to be able to pursue his educational baby instincts, untrameled by the pitching of the vessel. But Rose counted every moment lost, in which she was not pursuing her search for Vincent; a night of broken slumber, a hurried breakfast, a hasty toilet, and she started with Charley in her arms on her almost hopeless errand, she scarce knew whither.
Past the large hotel, on whose broad piazza strangers and citizens congregated, past the busy stores, past the quays and wharves, turning hastily the street corners, gazing into shops, now startled by the tone of a voice, now quickening her pace at the deceptive outline of a distant form. Fear found no place in her throbbing heart, and if it had, was there not an angel in her arms? It is a sweet thought, that the presence of a little child is often to an unattended woman the surest protection. The abandoned idler recognizes and respects this holy tie. He, too, was once a pure and stainless child—the lisping little voice seems to whisper in his sin-dulled ear, "Go and sin no more."
Rose could not have told why, of all the Southern cities, she had selected New Orleans for her search for Vincent. Had you asked, she could have given no reason for the magnetism which had drawn her thither.
Still she pursued her search day after day, spite of discouragement; still the great busy human tide ebbed and flowed past her, bearing on its surface barks without ballast—barks without rudder or compass—drifting hither and thither, careless how surely Time's rapids were hurrying them on to the shoreless ocean of eternity.
It was evening. Rose had put Charley in his little bed to sleep, and sat at the open window, as she had done many an evening before, watching and listening. It was now a fortnight since she came to New Orleans, and still no clew of Vincent. She could not always live in this way; she had not the purse of Fortunatus; she must soon again seek employment. Rose's heart grew sick and faint with hope deferred.