“Then, sir, you are quite satisfied with Richard.” The poor woman’s hands trembled as she folded them together, and the long-suppressed tears flowed over her cheeks. “I beg your pardon for troubling you—I have no right to do so, you are so kind to him; only, sir, please to remember that he has two fathers in heaven, and that I—poor creature that I am—feel accountable to both. I cannot sleep by night: I fear I neglect my duty, and yet I fear to overtax his; he gains knowledge so quickly that I tremble for his faith; and when I am sitting alone, between the dimness of my own sight and of the twilight, a thin, filmy shadow stands before me, and I think that I can see the parting of its lips, and hear them whisper—‘Where is my child—does he seek to win Christ?’”
The compassionate bookseller gazed upon her with deep feeling; the woman so feeble in body, yet so steadfast in what she believed right, was a new interest to him. He rose without a word, went to a dingy escritoir, opened the top, which folded down, and taking out a small bag of gold, selected a sovereign. “Go homewards,” said he, “and as you go, purchase a bottle of Port wine, and what my housekeeper calls a shin of beef. Make it all, mind you, every atom, into beef tea.”
“For Richard?”
“No, woman, for yourself; the weakness of your body adds to the weakness of your sight, and may, eventually, impair your mind. Pray, my good soul, for yourself, as well as for your son. Lay out the money faithfully for the purpose I have named; I know how it is, I know that you feed him—but you devote his surplus earnings to pay your little debts. I have seen you, on a Monday morning, enter a baker’s shop, with a thin, marble-covered book rolled in your hand. I have seen you pay the baker money, and you have left the shop without a loaf. Now, mind what I say.”
“But a whole sovereign!” she said, “it is too much—might I not pay—”
“Not a farthing out of that!” he exclaimed, “why you are quite as much of a shadow as when I saw you first. Well, if you are too proud to take it as a gift, your son shall repay it hereafter. And do not be so anxious about Richard; have you ever considered that great anxiety about any earthly thing, is want of faith in almighty wisdom and goodness? Has He not taken your husband, as you believe, into his presence for evermore? At the very time when you feared most for your boy, did not a door open to him? and was not the crooked made straight? It has always seemed most unaccountable to me, how people, and good people like you—who have hope forever on their lips—suffer so much fear to enter their hearts.”
But there was so much to cheer and encourage in the generosity and kindness of the worthy man, and in the faithful, yet unpretending, nature of his words, that the widow’s hope returned, at all events for a time, to her heart as well as to her lips. She might again have wandered—again have inquired if he thought her “little lad was quite safe,” for she never, in her best of days, could embrace more than one subject at a time—but his housekeeper entered with two cups of broth.
“You forget the time,” she said, abruptly, “though I’m thinking it wont return the compliment to either of you; I can’t say much for the broth, for the meat is not what it was long ago.”
“If the master gets a fit,” she continued, turning to the widow, “it will be your fault—keeping him without bit or sup—here, take the broth, it ain’t pison, and master’s no ways proud; I wish he was. If you can’t take your broth here comfortably, come with me to the kitchen.” Holding the cup in one hand, and leading the more than half-blind sempstress with the other, she conducted her down the narrow, dark stairs, as carefully as a mother would lead a child, but before she had seated her by the fire, the bell rang.
“I rang for you,” said her master, “knowing that your heart and words do not always go together—”