She caught at the name.
“Your sister? Ester Ried? Good! Let us carry them out, you and I, and as many more as we can get to help us. She is at work yet,—don't you see? What is that prophecy about her?—that voice which the prophet heard, you know, 'And I heard a voice saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors; and their works do follow them.'”
How strangely the words sounded, repeated in her low, clear voice, amid the hum of business on every side! Alfred Ried felt singularly moved. He had been a highly strung, imaginative child. He had been his sister Ester's almost constant companion during those last months in which she was slowly fading out of sight. While Julia held steadily to her mother's side, and learned to do many helpful things, he had been stationed chief nurse in Ester's room, to see that she lacked for no tender care during the hours when others must be away from her. And those hours she had tenderly improved. He remembered to this day just how she looked, with a pink flush all over her cheeks, and a bright light in her eyes, as she talked to him of the things that she and Dr. Douglass had meant to do for boys,—neglected, homeless, friendless boys. Oh, the plans they had carefully thought out, to reach after these forsaken ones! He remembered that his own cheeks had grown hot while he listened, and the blood had seemed to race like fire through his veins when she said, “God wants me for something else, Alfred; but you will do my work when you get to be a man; you will find helpers, and carry it on as I wanted to do.” He had made no audible answer, but he had told himself sturdily again and again that he certainly would. Yet here he was, barely of age, and almost soured by disappointments. Certain well-meant attempts having proved failures, and having not found the helpers whom he had eagerly expected, the magnitude of the work impressed itself upon him more remorselessly each hour. Yet now he seemed to feel again the thrill in his veins, and he felt almost under the power of his sister's eye while those words were in his ears: “They rest from their labors, and their works do follow them.” Might it possibly be that this was one of the “helpers” of whom Ester used to talk, sent by God himself to take up her planned work and follow it out? Yet she was so utterly unlike his memory of Ester! She had seemed to him a self-reliant, strong-toned woman; Mrs. Roberts was so small and frail-looking, and so fashionably dressed, and how those boys had acted with her only yesterday! What could she possibly do?
Customers came just then, to change the current of his thoughts. They wanted round collars, and deep collars, and fichus, and edges, and a hundred little irritating things. Young Ried, usually so gracious and patient, had much ado to keep from showing his annoyance over the smallness of all their wishes.
Meantime Mrs. Roberts, who had taken a seat, entered apparently with absorption into the relative merits of round or pointed collars with a young lady acquaintance. She patiently measured to discover whether the turned-down corner of one was a quarter of an inch deeper than the other or not; she gave, with due deliberation, her opinion as to whether the points were more becoming to the young lady's style of beauty than the rolling fronts, and even went to the trouble of unfastening her furs to show still another style that she liked better than either; sending the disgusted Alfred to an entirely different box in search of a like pattern. As he went, his lip curled visibly. What a fool he had been to allow himself to get momentarily excited over this doll! How preposterous in him to mention his dead sister's name to her! She had already forgotten the entire matter, and was deep in the merits of collars! His first estimate of her had been the correct one. Her mind was just about as deep, he believed, as the tiny collar she was measuring. What a farce it was to talk to her about helping those poor fellows! She probably thought a few soup tickets, and a chance for a good Christmas dinner at some of the public charity halls, was the way to reach and reform them. He shouldn't help her; she mustn't expect it. Doubtless she did not. Probably she had by this time forgotten that she had suggested it. Why need she putter here about a few collars for a young lady in her own circle to wear with her morning dresses? That was just it, he told himself. It was because she was in her circle, and because the collars were to be honored by being worn by such as she, that they became important, and the boys and their desperate needs sunk into insignificance. Well, he wished they would both go, and leave him to himself; give him a chance to rally from his momentary excitement, of which he was now ashamed.
At last the collars were bought,—but not until the counter was strewn with different sorts; and the lady, with many bright little nothings for last words, moved off to another part of the store, and Mrs. Roberts whirled on her seat until her eyes were in full view again, and said:
“What were some of her plans, Mr. Ried?”