Ester Ried Yet Speaking

by Pansy

As to “earning her living,” I am not sure but she was learning to do it in several ways. Mrs. Roberts struggled against all false ideas of life, therefore taught her none.

She was not the cook, but she could, and had on occasion, served up a most enjoyable breakfast.

She was not the second-girl, yet her fingers were undeniably skilful in the arrangement of rooms and tables. She was not the sewing-girl, yet constant were the calls on fingers that had become wise in these directions. She was by no means the nurse, yet there was a little golden-haired “Flossy” in the sunny room upstairs whose devoted slave she was, and whose mother felt that Mattie's loving, watchful care over her darling was only second to her own, and was so to be relied upon, by day and night, as to repay tenfold whatever she might have done for the girl.

In fact, it would perhaps be difficult to define “Mart” Colon's position in the house. Yet she was, as I said, becoming known among the young ladies outside as “Mattie Colson, that handsome young Colson's sister; as pretty as a doll, and a protégé of that lovely Mrs. Roberts, you know.” As for the Young Ladies' Band,—I do not include them when I talk of the girls “outside,”—what they had done for Mattie Colson she could not have told you though she tried, her eyes shining with tears.

The days had come wherein the very matrons who had said that it was a strange thing for Mrs. Roberts to take a girl from the slums into her family—that it was “tempting Providence to attempt such violent wrenches”—now said one to another, that “it must be a great relief to Mrs. Roberts to have that Mattie Colson always at her elbow to see that everything about the home was just as it should be;” and they added, with a sigh, that “some people were very fortunate.”

Now, dear critic, you stand all ready to say that this is a very nice paper story, but that in actual life attempts at doing good do not result so smoothly; that to be “natural,” Mrs. Roberts ought, at least, to have tried in vain to reclaim half of her boys.

It is true, I have said nothing to you about two or three whom she has not as yet reached, though she is still trying. My story was not of them, but of the twenty whom she did reach. Concerning your verdict, there are two things that I want to say: First, go into the work, and give the time and patience and faith and prayer that Mrs. Roberts and her fellow-workers gave, before you decide that it is vain.

And secondly, will you kindly remember that, whether this be natural or not, it is true?

I do not think I have told you the immediate occasion of this particular gathering. It was, in fact, a reception given to Mrs. Ried. It is not likely that I need tell you at this late day that her name was Gracie Dennis Ried. I could have told you much about it, had I been writing a story of that sort.

In fact, there is a chance for considerable romancing. There are matters of interest that I might tell you, about “Mr. Colson” himself, young as he is; and about Mattie, who wears to-night a rose that she did not pick from the conservatory; but I don't mean to tell it.