"Mother was always indulgent enough to me in the way of giving me playthings and time to play with them; but then she would always make me help her, ever since I can remember,—even when my help must have been much more a plague than a profit. I cannot remember when I had not certain duties to perform every day. I used to think myself hardly used,—quite a little martyr; but I am thankful to her now for all she did. I am very, very sorry for Aunt Train."
[CHAPTER XII.]
THE WILL [Part II].
FOR the next year all went prosperously with the inmates of Number Nine. John's business increased more and more, and became altogether that of a builder. The number of his contracts, and the necessity of being, as it were, in three or four places at once, obliged him either to hire a horse or to keep one; and he thought his increasing income justified him in purchasing a useful horse and buggy.
This establishment was a terrible eyesore to Agnes, who had the habit of looking at every new acquisition of her acquaintances as so much taken from herself; and she never rested till she persuaded Joe into purchasing a much more splendid establishment. Agnes imagined that Letty would be greatly annoyed by the contrast in the two carriages; but in this she was mistaken. Letty's only thought about the matter was that now poor Madge would be able to get out again.
Letty, for her own part, was very happy,—happy in her husband, in her pleasant home and kind neighbours, in congenial occupations and congenial society,—happy, above all, in that well-spring of peace within which flows only from the source of an entire daily consecration to God. No longer making the common mistake of living on past experience, she felt the necessity and experienced the blessing of that daily renewing of the Holy Spirit for which we are taught to pray. She had learned the precious lesson how to lift up her heart to God in all places and at all times,—not carrying all day the burden of any sin or sorrow, and allowing it, like a thorn neglected, to rankle and irritate still more, but going at once to the source of healing, and laying her trouble or her transgression, great or small, on Him who bears the burdens of us all.
Letty found increasing pleasure in her charitable ministrations. True, she saw much to mourn over and much to condemn, and she rarely met with that exalted virtue which people, who know little about the matter, are fond of attributing to the very poor. She did not find the daughters of thieves and street-walkers expressing exalted sentiment in pure English; nor did she come across any of those wonderful old apple-women and evangelical scissor-grinders of whom we occasionally read.
But she found and rejoiced in many opportunities of helping the distressed, comforting the sorrowful and instructing the ignorant; and she was able in some instances to rescue children from destruction. The little ones at the Home were a daily pleasure to her, as she watched their bodily growth, their rapid improvement and their intense enjoyment of the warm nursery and airy play-room. Then, too, Letty found great enjoyment in the society of the other visitors, with whom she was naturally thrown in contact. They were mostly cultivated women, who had thought and read for themselves and who knew how to appreciate thought and earnestness in other people.
Mrs. Trescott had always encouraged Letty in reading and study: she had given her time for such pursuits and afforded her every assistance; and Letty had never supposed that her education was at an end because she was married. John always kept up his subscription to the library, and spent many a dollar upon new books as they came out. Mrs. Campion soon discovered that Letty kept up, as well as most people, with the literature of the day; that she dared to have opinions of her own, which she expressed moderately and temperately and in good English. Moved by these considerations, she placed Letty's name on her books; and, two or three vacancies occurring about that time in the Book Club, Mrs. Caswell was proposed and voted in without one dissenting ballot.
It was a bitter day for Agnes when she called at the house of a mutual acquaintance and found in a Club-book lying on the table the name of Mrs. Caswell, of Myrtle Street, as a member; nor was the bitterness at all assuaged by the further discovery that the Club had actually met at Number Nine and spent a very pleasant evening. Agnes went home that day with the firm conviction that she was the most miserable, ill-treated woman in all T—. She wondered if Mrs. De Witt was invited, and surmised that, if she was, Letty must have been finely mortified by her company; and, if she was not, Mrs. De Witt would never speak to her again.