Her hostess looked at me, and said low, 'Them's the first words she has spoken in her own natural voice since her trouble.'
Jane continued, not aware that we were listening to her now:
'I've often heard father say it's no disgrace to be ever so poor, and to get help from others, when it comes on us from God's hand, and not because we are idle and won't work. Many a time he says that, when he is ill and can't work, and mother gets downhearted, and thinks we'll have to come on the parish; and he says even going on the parish ain't no disgrace then, when it ain't one's own fault. But mother says she'd work her fingers to the bone sooner than she'd go on the parish; and with one thing and another, we've always got on somehow, and so will you, I'm sure.'
'Yes,' said the woman, with an energy that startled us all, while it delighted us,—'yes, I may get on too, with God's help; but not if I am to sit here with my hands folded, before the fire, thinking of my trouble instead of trying to mend it. God bless you, my lass, for your money, which I'll take from you thankfully; and if I can't never repay you, may He do it. It will serve to get me some clothes, and then I can work; and who knows but I may have a home of my own again some day?'
Finding her able and willing now to listen to reason, I explained to her that some friends who had heard of her loss had placed three pounds at my disposal for her use, and that she must look upon the help she got quite as much as coming from God as Elijah did when the ravens fed him, because it was God who put it into people's hearts to give her money. She took what I gave her gratefully, and entered warmly into all the plans which we suggested for her future. It was agreed that she should at once take a small furnished room, and go with her children to occupy it. She said she had for some time had regular work as a charwoman for three days in every week. This work she could still have; and I engaged to get her some needlework from a working society, which might help to occupy her spare time, and bring in a little money. The woman in whose house she was staying told us that a sister of hers would willingly take the eldest girl, who was eleven years old, as she wanted a girl to take care of her baby while she looked after a small shop. She engaged that for a year her sister should feed and clothe the girl, if she gave satisfaction; and said that if she behaved herself, she was sure her sister would keep her till she was old enough to get a better place.
It was pleasant to see how heartily Mrs. Martin entered into all these arrangements as they were severally proposed, and the eager gladness of Jane Hill's face as she listened to our plans, and, with the hopefulness and inexperience of youth, evidently believed that each one was to lead to competence, if not to actual wealth.
The fire did, indeed, in the end, prove to have been the greatest blessing to the Martins. Many people were led to interest themselves in the poor widow and her children, who would never have heard of them but for it. Mrs. Martin got more work to do than she could get through, and her children obtained situations as soon as they were old enough to work for themselves. She never forgot the debt of gratitude she owed to Jane Hill. 'But for her,' she said, 'she believed she would have moped herself into her grave.'
The Christmas-day after the fire, I had the pleasure of taking to Jane a nice, warm, winter cloak. She began to say, in a deprecating way, 'Oh, ma'am, indeed it's far too kind! mine is quite good yet;' but I stopped her, saying, 'No, Jane, you must not keep all the pleasure of giving to yourself. Remember that to others, as well as to yourself, it is true that "It is more blessed to give than to receive."'