“Yes; he allows himself no time to rest. I really think he ought. But, Martha, I am going to ask your advice about something very important to me,” said the child, gravely.
“Thank you for your confidence, Helen. Whatever is of importance to you will be of interest to me.”
“You remember telling me the other day that you liked my singing, and that I might some day become a great singer. You know I told you at the time how glad I was to hear you say so.”
“Yes, Helen; I remember it.”
“I did not tell you then why I felt glad; but I will now.”
Helen paused a moment, and then in a frank tone, which showed how little she was affected by the conventional shame some feel in disclosing their poverty, continued: “My father and I are very poor. We have been so for some time, but I got a little money by sewing, and that helped along. Now, you know, business is dull, and I can get no more work to do. The little money we have left will not last a fortnight, though I am very economical. So you see, Martha, it is quite necessary that I should find some way of earning more money at once.”
“Does your father know how near you are to destitution?” inquired the seamstress.
“No,” was the child’s reply; “and I hope he will not find out. I cannot bear to trouble him with that, when he has so much to think of. It can’t be very long before he finishes his model, and then we shall have plenty of money. If I can only earn enough to keep us along till that time I shall be very glad.”
“Poor child!” thought Martha, compassionately; “it will be long enough before your father’s invention fills your purse.”
She was about to offer to procure Helen some work from the establishment where she was employed, but when she looked at the bright face of the young girl, and thought to what hours and days of weariness it would consign her, how it would steal one by one the roses from her cheeks, and the freshness from her heart, leaving her with little to enjoy in the present and less to hope for in the future, she had not the heart to offer her the destiny which she had been compelled to accept for herself; nor could she bear to dim the child’s trustful confidence in her father’s success by the expression of a single doubt.