The Wide, Wide World

"What is there I can do for you?" said he, with a gentleness that seemed almost strange from such lips.

"If you would," said Ellen faintly, "if you could be so kind as to read me a hymn, I should be so glad. I've had nobody to read to me."

Her hand put the little book towards him as she said so.

Mr. Van Brunt would vastly rather any one had asked him to plough an acre. He was to the full as much confounded as poor Ellen had once been at a request of his. He hesitated and looked towards Ellen, wishing for an excuse. But the pale little face that lay there against the pillow, the drooping eyelids, the meek, helpless look of the little child put all excuses out of his head; and though he would have chosen to do almost anything else, he took the book, and asked her "Where?" She said anywhere; and he took the first he saw.

"Poor, weak, and worthless though I am,
I have a rich, almighty friend;
Jesus the Saviour is His name,
He freely loves, and without end."

"Oh," said Ellen, with a sigh of pleasure, and folding her hands on her breast – "how lovely that is!"

He stopped and looked at her a moment, and then went on with increased gravity.

"He ransomed me from hell with blood,
And by His pow'r my foes controlled;
He found me wand'ring far from God,
And brought me to His chosen fold."

"Fold!" said Ellen, opening her eyes; "what is that?"

"It's where sheep are penned, ain't it?" said Mr. Van Brunt, after a pause.

"Oh yes," said Ellen, "that's it; I remember; that's like what he said, 'I am the good shepherd,' and 'the Lord is my shepherd;' I know now. Go on, please."

He finished the hymn without more interruption. Looking again towards Ellen, he was surprised to see several large tears finding their way down her cheeks from under the wet eyelashes. But she quickly wiped them away.

"What do you read them things for," said he, "if they make you feel bad?"

"Feel bad!" said Ellen. "Oh, they don't; they make me happy; I love them dearly. I never read that one before. You can't think how much I am obliged to you for reading it to me. Will you let me see where it is?"

He gave it her.

"Yes, there's his mark!" said Ellen, with sparkling eyes. "Now, Mr. Van Brunt, would you be so very good as to read it once more?"

He obeyed. It was easier this time. She listened as before with closed eyes, but the colour came and went once or twice.

"Thank you very much," she said, when he had done. "Are you going?"

"I must; I have some things to look after."

She held his hand still.

"Mr. Van Brunt, don't you love hymns?"

"I don't know much about 'em, Miss Ellen."

"Mr. Van Brunt, are you one of that fold?"

"What fold?"

"The fold of Christ's people."

"I'm afeard not, Miss Ellen," said he soberly, after a minute's pause.

"Because," said Ellen, bursting into tears, "I wish you were, very much."

She carried the great brown hand to her lips before she let it go. He went without saying a word. But when he got out, he stopped and looked at a little tear she had left on the back of it. And he looked till one of his own fell there to keep it company.

CHAPTER XXI

Oh, that had, how sad a passage 'tis!

    – Shakespeare.

The next day, about the middle of the afternoon, a light step crossed the shed, and the great door opening gently, in walked Miss Alice Humphreys. The room was all "redd up," and Miss Fortune and her mother sat there at work, one picking over white beans at the table, the other in her usual seat by the fire, and at her usual employment, which was knitting. Alice came forward, and asked the old lady how she did.

"Pretty well. Oh, pretty well!" she answered, with the look of bland good-humour her face almost always wore; "and glad to see you, dear. Take a chair."

Alice did so, quite aware that the other person in the room was not glad to see her.

"And how goes the world with you, Miss Fortune?"

"Humph! It's a queer kind of world, I think," answered that lady dryly, sweeping some of the picked beans into her pan. "I get a'most sick of it sometimes."

"Why, what's the matter?" said Alice pleasantly. "May I ask, has anything happened to trouble you?"

"Oh no," said the other somewhat impatiently. "Nothing that's any matter to any one but myself. It's no use speaking about it."

"Ah! Fortune never would take the world easy," said the old woman, shaking her head from side to side. "Never would; I never could get her."

"Now, do hush, mother, will you?" said the daughter, turning round upon her with startling sharpness of look and tone. "Take the world easy! You always did. I'm glad I ain't like you."

"I don't think it's a bad way, after all," said Alice. "What's the use of taking it hard, Miss Fortune?"

"The way one goes on!" said that lady, picking away at her beans very fast, and not answering Alice's question. "I'm tired of it. Toil, toil, and drive, drive, from morning to night; and what's the end of it all?"

"Not much," said Alice gravely, "if our toiling looks no further than this world. When we go we shall carry nothing away with us. I should think it would be very wearisome to toil only for what we cannot keep nor stay long to enjoy."

"It's a pity you warn't a minister, Miss Alice," said Miss Fortune dryly.

"Oh no, Miss Fortune," said Alice, smiling. "The family would be overstocked. My father is one, and my brother will be another. A third would be too much. You must be so good as to let me preach without taking orders."

"Well, I wish every minister was as good a one as you'd make," said Miss Fortune, her hard face giving way a little. "At any rate, nobody'd mind anything you'd say, Miss Alice."

"That would be unlucky, in one sense," said Alice, "but I believe I know what you mean. But, Miss Fortune, no one would dream the world went very hard with you. I don't know anybody, I think, lives in more independent comfort and plenty, and has things more to her mind. I never come to the house that I am not struck with the fine look of the farm and all that belongs to it."