Emilie the Peacemaker

by Mrs. Thomas Geldart

How it happened took Miss Webster some time to tell. It happened in no very unusual manner, and the effect was a scalt foot, which she forthwith shewed Miss Schomberg. There was no doubt that it was a very bad foot, and Emilie saw that it needed a good nurse more than a good doctor. Mr. Parker was a medical man, and Emilie knew she should have no difficulty in obtaining that kind of assistance for her. But the nursing! Miss Webster was feverish and uneasy, and in such suffering that something must be done. At the sight of her pain all was forgotten, but that she was a fellow-creature, helpless and forsaken, and that she must be helped.

All this time any one coming in might have imagined that Emilie had been the cause of the disaster, so affronted was Miss Webster's manner, and so pettishly did she reject all her visitor's suggestions as preposterous and impossible.

"Will you give up your walk to-night, Edith," said Emilie on her return to the shop, "Poor Miss Webster is in such pain I cannot leave her, and if you would run home and ask your papa to step in and see her, and say she has scalt her foot badly, I would thank you very much."

Emilie spoke earnestly, so earnestly that Edith asked if she were grown very fond of that "sour old maid all of a sudden."

"Very fond! No Edith; but it does not, or ought not to require us to be very fond of people to do our duty to them."

"Well, I don't see what duty you owe to that mean creature, and I see no reason why I should lose my walk again to-night. You treat people you don't love better than those you do it seems; or else your professions of loving me mean nothing. All day long you have been after Fred's balloon, and now I suppose mean to be all night long after Miss Webster's foot."

Emilie made no reply; she could only have reproached Edith for selfishness and temper at least equal to Miss Webster's, but telling Lucy she should soon return, hastened to Mr. Parker's house, followed by Edith; he was soon at the patient's side, and as Emilie foretold, it was a case more for an attentive nurse than a skilful doctor. He promised to send her an application, but, "Miss Schomberg," said he, "sleep is what she wants; she tells me she has had no rest since the accident occurred. What is to be done?" "Can you not send for a neighbour, Miss Webster, or some one to attend to your household, and to nurse you too. If you worry yourself in this way you will be quite ill."

Poor Miss Webster was ill, she knew it; and having neither neighbour nor friend within reach, she did what was very natural in her case, she took up her handkerchief and began to cry. "Oh, come, Miss Webster," said Emilie, cheerfully, "I will get you to bed, and Lucy shall come when the shop is closed, and to-morrow I will get aunt Agnes to come and nurse you. Keep up your spirits."

"Ah, it is very well to talk of keeping up spirits, and as to your aunt Agnes, there never was any love lost between us. No thank you, Miss Schomberg, no thank you. If I may just trouble you to help me to the side of my bed, I can get in, and do very well alone. Good night." Emilie stood looking pitifully at her. "I hope I don't keep you, Miss Schomberg, pray don't stay, you cannot help me," and here Miss Webster rose, but the agony of putting her foot to the ground was so great that she could not restrain a cry, and Emilie, who saw that the poor sufferer was like a child in helplessness, and like a child, moreover, in petulance, calmly but resolutely declared her intention of remaining until Lucy could leave the shop.

Having helped her landlady into bed, she ran down-stairs to try and appease the indignant lodgers, who protested, and with truth, that they had rung, rung, rung, and no one answered the bell; that they wanted tea, that Miss Webster had undertaken to wait on them, that they were not waited on, and that accordingly they would seek other lodgings on the morrow, they would, &c., &c. "Miss Webster, ma'am, is very ill to-night. She has a young careless servant girl, and is, I assure you, very much distressed that you should be put out thus. I will bring up your tea, ma'am, in five minutes, if you will allow me. It is very disagreeable for you, but I am sure if you could see the poor woman, ma'am, you would pity her." Mrs. Harmer did pity her only from Emilie's simple account of her state, and declared she was very sorry she had seemed angry, but the girl did not say her mistress was ill, only that she was lying down, which appeared very disrespectful and inattentive, when they had been waiting two hours for tea.