"Such has ever been the feeling, Louise, that she has excited in me. She has done me harm heretofore; and do you know, I think she means me ill now. I have uttered this suspicion to Henry and Miss Nancy, but they both laughed it to scorn—saying she was powerless to injure me; but still my fear remains, and, when I think of her, I grow sick at heart."
Upon my return home that evening I told Miss Nancy of the meeting with Lindy, and of the conversation, but she attached no importance to it.
No one living beneath the vine and fig-tree of Miss Nancy's planting, and sharing the calm blessedness of her smiles, could be long unhappy! Her life, as well as words, was a proof that human nature is not all depraved. In thinking over the rare combination of virtues that her character set forth, I have marvelled what must have been her childhood. Certainly she could never have possessed the usual waywardness of children. Her youth must have been an exception to the general rule. I cannot conceive her with the pettishness and proneness to quarrel, which we naturally expect in children. I love to think of her as a quiet little Miss, discarding the doll and play-house, turning quietly away from the frolicsome kitten—seeking the leafy shade of the New England forests—peering with a curious, thoughtful eye into the woodland dingle—or straining her gaze far up into the blue arch of heaven—or questioning, with a child's idle speculation, the whence and the whither of the mysterious wind. 'Tis thus I have pictured her childhood! She was a strange, gifted, unusual woman;—who, then, can suppose that her infancy and youth were ordinary?
To this day her memory is gratefully cherished by hundreds. Many little pauper children have felt the kindness of her charity; and those who are now independent remember the time when her bounty rescued them from want, and "they rise up to call her blessed!"
Often have I gone with her upon visits and errands of charity. Through many a dirty alley have those dainty feet threaded a dangerous way; and up many a dizzy, dismal flight of ricketty steps have I seen them ascend, and never heard a petulant word, or saw a haughty look upon her face! She never went upon missions of charity in a carriage, or, if she was too weak to walk all the way, she discharged the vehicle before she got in sight of the hovel. "Let us not be ostentatious," she would say, when I interposed an objection to her taking so long a walk. "Besides," she added, "let us give no offence to these suffering poor ones. Let them think we come as sisters to relieve them; not as Dives, flinging to Lazarus the crumbs of our bounty!"
Beautiful Christian soul! baptized with the fire of the Holy Ghost, endowed with the same saintly spirit that rendered lovely the life of her whom the Saviour called Mother! thou art with the Blessed now! After a life of earnest, godly piety, thou hast gone to receive thine inheritance above, and wear the Amaranthine Crown! for thou didst obey the Saviour's sternest mandate—sold thy possessions, and gave all to the poor!
CHAPTER XL.
THE CRISIS OF EXISTENCE—A DREADFUL PAGE IN LIFE.