There is a ring at the door of the great house. A woman glides modestly in; by her dress, she is a widow. She has opened a small school in the neighbourhood, and in the search for scholars has wandered in here. She looks about her. Her quick, womanly instinct sounds the alarm. She is not among the good and pure of her sex. But she does not scorn them. No; she looks upon their blighted beauty with a Christ-like pity; she says to herself, haply some word of mine may touch their hearts. So she says gently, “Pardon me, ladies, but I had hoped to find scholars here; you will forgive the intrusion, I know; for, though you are not mothers, you have all had mothers.”
Why is Mary’s lip so ashen white? Why does she tremble from head to foot, as if smitten by the hand of God? Why do the hot tears stream through her jewelled fingers? Ah! Mary. That little dark room, with its toil, its gloom, its innocence, were Heaven’s own brightness now to your tortured spirit.
Pitilessly the slant rain rattled against the window panes: awnings creaked and flapped, and the street lamps flickered in the strong blast: full-freighted omnibuses rolled over the muddy pavements: stray pedestrians turned up their coat-collars, grasped their umbrellas more tightly, and made for the nearest port. A woman, half-blinded by the long hair which the fury of the wind had driven across her face, drenched to the skin with the pouring rain—shoeless, bonnetless, homeless, leans unsteadily against a lamp-post, and in the maudlin accents of intoxication curses the passers-by. A policeman’s strong grasp is laid upon her arm, and she is hurried, struggling, through the dripping streets, and pushed into the nearest “station-house.” Morning dawns upon the wretched, forsaken outcast. She sees it not. Upon those weary eyes only the resurrection morn shall dawn.
No more shall the stony-hearted shut, in her imploring face, the door of hope; no more shall gilded sin, with Judas smile, say, “Eat, drink, and be merry;” no more shall the professed followers of Him who said, “Neither do I condemn thee,” say to the guilt-stricken one, “Stand aside—for I am holier than thou.” No, none may tempt, none may scorn, none may taunt her more. A pauper’s grave shall hide poor Mary and her shame.
God speed the day when the Juggernaut wheels of Avarice shall no longer roll over woman’s dearest hopes; when thousands of doors, now closed, shall be opened for starving Virtue to earn her honest bread; when he who would coin her tears and groans to rear his palaces, shall become a hissing and a bye-word, wherever the sacred name of Mother shall be honoured.
“WHO LOVES A RAINY DAY?”
The bored editor; who, for one millennial day, in slippered feet, controls his arm-chair, exchanges, stove, and inkstand; who has time to hunt up delinquent subscribers; time to decipher hieroglyphical manuscripts; time to make a bonfire of bad poetry; time to kick out lozenge boys and image vendors; time to settle the long-standing quarrel between Nancy the type-setter, and Bill the foreman, and time to write complimentary letters to himself for publication in his own paper, and to get up a new humbug prospectus for the dear, confiding public.
Who loves a rainy day?