Rogues and Vagabonds

by George R. Sims

It was a strange sight to see Gertie at her lessons among the animals. These hours were the happiest of the poor child’s life. When the day came round for Miss Adrian’s visit, Gertie would wait anxiously for grandfather’s departure. Then she would go and stand at the door and look up the street, and Lion would stand beside her.

If Miss Adrian saw the dog and the child together she knew that she might come in. If Gertie was alone she would pass by, just speaking a few words to the child as she went along.

Gertie spoke of Miss Adrian to Lion as ‘the beautiful lady,’ and Gertie’s description would hardly have been disputed by any one who knew what real beauty was. Ruth Adrian, at the age of twenty-eight, was as young looking as many a girl of eighteen. If it ever comes into fashion to print actual coloured photographs of an author’s characters in his story, it will save the male writer much vexation of spirit. Ladies can tell you at a glance the colour of everybody’s hair and eyes, the modelling of the chin, the expression of the lips, and the character of the nose. The present writer, if asked suddenly, when away from his domestic circle, the colour of his nearest female relative’s eyes, would have to telegraph home for the information. To such a one the minute personal description of his characters is indeed a task, but he is bound to attempt it. What would the ladies say if he left them in doubt as to the colour of his hero’s eyes? What would the gentlemen say if he failed properly to describe the beautiful features of sweet Ruth Adrian?

Picture, then, a tall young lady, with soft grey eyes, fair cheeks, in which the delicate white and pink had never been marred by the pernicious adjuncts of the modern belle’s dressing-table; a small, almost baby mouth, that seemed specially designed to spread a perpetual smile over the face; brown hair, neatly and smoothly arranged over a forehead almost too high for a woman’s; and a nose which a Greek sculptor might have borrowed for his Diana.

Here you have what the auctioneers would call a catalogue of the features of Ruth Adrian. Picture her thus and you will behold a marble statue; to see her as she was, a sweet and noble English woman, the beautiful spirit that was hers must animate the lifeless clay. Let truth and love shine out from the soft grey eyes, over the fair cheeks spread the glow of health and the smile of innocence, listen to the gentle words of sympathy with all God’s creatures that fall so softly from the well-shaped lips; let the inner beauty of her noble, loving nature shine through and illuminate the whole, as the soft light of the lamp in my lady’s boudoir glows through the daintily decorated shade that covers it, and brings the hidden beauties into tender relief; think of Rath Adrian, not as a beautiful doll, but as a noble woman, and then you will see her as she was.

The one great trouble of her life had chastened her beauty, and left upon her features that gentle look of melancholy which poets love to give their heroines.

Ruth had loved and lost. The man who won her girlish heart had been unworthy of her. She believed him to be an honourable English gentleman; she discovered him to be an adventurer and a scamp.

The moment the fatal truth was revealed to her, the quiet heroism of her character asserted itself. She renounced him, not with scorn or indignation, but with loving words and gentle pity. She bade him farewell, and buried her unhappy love in the innermost chamber of her heart. She bowed beneath the blow, and prayed God for strength to bear it. He went his way, and she went hers, and from that moment the poor and suffering took the vacant place in her heart.

She didn’t break her heart, but, like a brave woman, resolved to devote the life that should have been lived for a man to her suffering fellow-creatures. She had a hearty sympathy with the poor and oppressed, with dumb animals and little children, and she went about doing good quietly and effectively.

Ruth Adrian was free from the cant which mars the efforts of so many well-meaning people. If she could save a soul she was delighted, but she always tried to save the body first. The penny-packet-of -tea-dust-once-a-month, and tracts-once-a-week system of mission work she despised. She did not bribe people to be hypocrites, neither did she have holy names in her mouth in season and out of season. She went with the precepts of the loving Lord in her heart instead of on her lips, and so she conquered where the professional missionary, male and female, failed utterly.