Was I right?

by Mrs. O. F. Walton

IT has often seemed very strange to me, that in moments of great anxiety or trouble, when our minds and our hearts are stretched to the uttermost, we notice with the keenest perception every little object around us. Each moving leaf, each nodding flower, catches our attention, and, years afterwards, we can remember, as distinctly as if it were yesterday, how everything looked in those sorrowful moments, when our minds were filled with thoughts of things and people far away.

There is one day in my life, which stands out from amongst the past as a day above all others to be remembered by me. And, as I look back to it, I see myself a girl of nineteen, sitting at my bedroom window, lost in thought and perplexity! I can see the garden just as it looked as I gazed out into it that afternoon—our quaint, old-fashioned garden, with its hedge of laurel bushes, and the large elm trees at the end of it, with the flickering light and shade underneath. I can see the rabbits from the plantations round, nibbling the grass on the lawn; and I can hear the trickling of the stream, which ran by the side of the house, in which Claude, and Maggie, and I used to float our boats, in the happy days when we were children. And now the old home must be left for ever, for Maggie and I had not a penny in the world!

Our father had been the doctor in the village. It was a very poor place, and the people had never any money to spare. My father was too kind-hearted to press for payment, when he saw how hard it was for them to live; and so the years went by, and although his practice was large, he saved very little money. But even this small amount never came to us, for just before his death, the bank in which it was placed suddenly failed, and so, when he was gone, Maggie and I were penniless!

Maggie was much younger than I was; she was my half-sister, and her mother died three weeks after she was born. She committed her little baby to me, when she knew that she must leave it; and from that day I became, as far as I was able, a mother to Maggie. I was a very little mother, for I was only seven years old; but a feeling of great responsibility and trust came over me, as I left the room where my stepmother was dying. I crept up to the nursery, and stroked the baby's face very gently, and felt as if she belonged to me from that moment.

And now, Maggie and I were left without a penny in the world. For Maggie it was not of so much consequence. A letter had come from her old maiden aunts, her mother's sisters, to insist upon her going at once to live with them in the old Manor House at Brandon. Maggie would be happy, and cared for there; that was a great relief to my mind. Poverty and hardship would not cross the path of my little sister, and I was more than content that it should be so. But there was no such home in prospect for me. Maggie's aunts were, of course, not related to me, and my mother had been a friendless orphan, so I had no one to take compassion on me. Separated from the old home, separated from Maggie, life looked very cheerless to me in prospect.

My mind was full of trouble and of perplexity, for on the table before me lay two letters, which must be answered before evening, and upon the answer to these letters would hang all my future life.

I sat at my bedroom window, not knowing what to do. The clock ticked on, the hands were moving round, and my letters were still unanswered.

It was then, that, as I gazed into the garden, every tiny object was imprinted on my mind. And I can remember that, as I was sitting there, the sun went behind a bank of heavy clouds, and all was gloomy and dismal in a moment. The rabbits ran back to their holes, the sunbeams fled from the lawn, the wind whistled drearily in the chimneys of the old house, and flapped the branches of the climbing rose-tree against my bedroom window. It seemed to me then very like the cloud which had come across my hitherto happy life. And now, what was before me? Joy or sorrow?

It appeared to be left with me to decide. The two letters must be answered. The first of these was from an old governess of ours, a kind, good woman. I had written to tell her of my difficulties, and she wrote to advise me to apply for a situation as companion to a young lady of fortune, in answer to an advertisement which had just appeared in the "Times" newspaper. A fair salary was promised, and all expenses of travelling would be defrayed.

That was one of the letters which I had to answer. That was one path of life which lay before me. It did not seem very bright in prospect. The position of a poor companion in a large household was certainly not one which I should have chosen for myself.