"I've travelled this country all over,
And now to the next I must go;
But I know that good quarters await me,
And a welcome to Rosin the Beau."
Oh, Father of mercy! never doubted, always near in sorrow and in joy! oh, holy angels, who have held my hands and lifted me up, lest I dash my foot against a stone! A welcome,—oh, on my knees, in humble thanksgiving, in endless love and praise,—a welcome to Rosin the Beau!
* * * * *
An hour later Mrs. Brown stood before her employer, flushed and disordered, making her defence.
"I couldn't have helped it, not if I had died for it, Mr. Anderson. You couldn't have helped it yourself, if you had been there. When she heard that fiddle, the child dropped on her knees as if she had been shot, and I thought she was going to faint. But the next minute she was at the window, and such a cry as she gave! the sound of it is in my bones yet, and will be till I die."
She paused, and wiped her fiery face, for she had run bareheaded through the blazing streets.
"Then he came in,—the old man. He was plain dressed, but he came in like a king to his throne; and the child drifted into his arms like a flake of snow, and there she lay. Mr. Anderson, when he held her there on his breast, and turned and looked at me, with his eyes like two black coals, all power was taken from me, and I couldn't have moved if it had been to save my own life. He pointed at me with his fiddle-bow, but it might have been a sword for all the difference I knew; anyway, his voice went through and through me like something sharp and bright. 'You cannot move,' he said; 'you have no power to move hand or foot till I have taken my child away. I bid you be still!' Mr. Anderson, sir, I had no power! I stood still, and they went away. They seemed to melt away together,—he with his arm round her waist, holding her up like; and she with her face turned up to his, and a look like heaven, if I ever hope to see heaven. The next minute they was gone, and still I hadn't never moved. And now I've come to tell you, sir," cried Mrs. Brown, smoothing down her ruffled hair in great agitation; "and to tell you something else too, as I would burst if I didn't. I am glad he has got her! If I was to lose my place fifty times over, as you've always been good pay and a kind gentleman too, still I say it, I'm glad he has got her. She wasn't of your kind, sir, nor of mine neither. And—and I've never been a professor," cried the woman, with her apron at her eyes, "but I hope I know an angel when I see one, and I mean to be a better woman from this day, so I do. And she asked God to bless me, Mr. Anderson, she did, as she went away, because I meant to be kind to her; and I did mean it, the blessed creature! And she said good-by to you too, sir; and she knew you thought it was for her good, only you didn't know what God meant. And I'm so glad, I'm so glad!"
She stopped short, more surprised than she had ever been in her life; for Edward Anderson was shaking her hand violently, and telling her that she was a good woman, a very good woman indeed, and that he thought the better of her, and had been thinking for some time of raising her salary.