Mr. Raeburn lived in the aristocratic part of the city of New York; and Bessie, thinking that she could not there carry out her plan in a perfectly satisfactory manner, hailed a down-town stage. Driver and passengers looked surprised to see a child taking a trip all alone; but Bessie had such an old, authoritative manner, that they supposed that all was right. After a long, long ride, she alighted somewhere in the neighborhood of the poorest and least respectable part of the city. I may as well tell you now, if you have n't guessed it, Bessie was bound on a mission, a charitable visit to the poor,—the miserably poor, of whom she had heard her father read. She anxiously looked around her for a beggar-child, who should act as her guide to some home of unmerited misfortune, where virtuous poverty pined, and wept, and waited. Alas! there were plenty of sad little mendicants on the streets that day, but Bessie was not easily satisfied. "It must be a little girl," she said to herself, "very, very poor,—pale, and thin, and ragged, and sorrowful, but still pretty, and mild-looking. And she must have a pretty name too, like the little girls that beg in magazine stories, or sell matches, and are stolen by gypsies, and sing ballads for dreadful organ-grinders, and all that." It was a long time before she found one at all to her mind, but finally she was accosted by a little girl, who looked wretched enough, to be sure,—tattered, and sickly, and starved. She was not quite up to the mark as to prettiness, though she had soft, sorrowful eyes and a delicate mouth. Hunger, cold, and ill-treatment are not very favorable to beauty. Then the name she gave was decidedly unromantic,—Molly Magee. But the poor child told a piteous story, which soon brought tears to Bessie's gentle eyes,—how her father was dead of fever, and her mother a suffering invalid; how she was obliged to beg in the streets, from morning till night, to obtain food for that poor dear mother, three darling little brothers, and two sisters, twins and blind! It was a hard case, surely, and Bessie offered at once to go home with her petitioner, to see what she could do towards alleviating the family distress. The little mendicant hesitated at first, and attempted to dissuade her, but at last, as Bessie obstinately insisted on her own plan of benevolence, she yielded, and rather sullenly led the way homeward. Ah, what a way it was! down one dirty street and up another,—through vile courts and alleys reeking with filth, swarming with idle, loud-voiced men, wretched-looking women, slatternly girls, and forlorn children. Bessie's heart grew sick and her courage failed her. If she had known the way back, she would gladly have made an inglorious retreat!
The guide at last conducted her down a flight of slippery steps, leading to the basement of a squalid old tenement-house, in the five stories of which more than as many families were packed, layer on layer, and Bessie found herself in the very bosom of the distressed family of her humble little friend. This home of virtuous poverty was not exactly what she looked for. It was darker, dirtier, more confused and noisy; it smelt worse. There were the "three darling little brothers," to be sure, and they were quite satisfactorily ragged. But Bessie looked in vain for the twin-sisters, whose blindness had so engaged her sympathies. But she said to herself, "Perhaps they, too, have gone out begging, with a pair of twin dogs to lead them." The invalid mother was surely on the mend, for she looked quite stout, and her face was flushed, though that might be from fever. She sat by an old stove, smoking a short black pipe.
Bessie
"Well, Molly, what have you brought us?" exclaimed this interesting invalid, in a voice by no means agreeable.
"I have n't got anything," was the reply; "but here's a rich little miss, as says she has got something for us; she would come herself, instead of giving it to me."
The woman took her pipe from her lips, and fixing a pair of hard, hungry eyes upon Bessie, as she stood smiling kindly, with her basket on her arm, like a dear little Red Ridinghood, broke out with, "And what put it into the head of such a fine lady to come anear the likes of us the day?"
"I wanted to see how poor people live," replied Bessie, honestly, "and I have brought you something for Christmas," she continued, stepping up a little timidly, and offering her basket.
The woman caught it eagerly, and turned its contents into her lap. "And is this all?" she growled. "A pretty dinner, indade, for a starving family; nuts and candies and the like! No bread, not the laste taste of butter or mate."