After a Shadow and Other Stories

"Help!" he cried again, and the sound of his voice directed their eyes towards him. Even in his distress, alarm, and bewilderment, the young man recognized instantly in the woman the person they had so wantonly insulted only an hour or two before. As soon as she saw them, she ran forward hastily, and seeing the white face of the insensible girl, exclaimed, with pity and concern,—

"O, sir! is she badly hurt?"

There was heart in that voice of peculiar sweetness.

"Poor lady!" she said, tenderly, as she untied the bonnet strings with gentle care, and placed her hand upon the clammy temples.

"Shall I help you to take her over to the house?" she added, drawing an arm beneath the form of the insensible girl.

"Thank you!" There was a tone of respect in the young man's voice. "But I can carry her myself;" and he raised the insensible form in his arms, and, following the young stranger, bore it into her humble dwelling. As he laid her upon a bed, he asked, eagerly,—

"Is there a doctor near?"

"Yes, sir," replied the girl. "If you will come to the door, I will show you the doctor's house; and I think he must be at home, for I saw him go by only a quarter of an hour since. John will take care of your horse while you are away, and I will do my best for the poor lady."

The doctor's house, about a quarter of a mile distant, was pointed out, and the young man hurried off at a rapid speed. He was gone only a few minutes when his insensible companion revived, and, starting up, looked wildly around her.

"Where am I? Where is George?" she asked, eagerly.

"He has gone for the doctor; but will be back very soon," said the young woman, in a kind, soothing voice.

"For the doctor! Who's injured?" She had clasped her hands across her forehead, and now, on removing them, saw on one a wet stain of blood. With a frightened cry she fell backs upon the pillow from which she had risen.

"I don't think you are much hurt," was said, in a tone of encouragement, as with a damp cloth the gentle stranger wiped very tenderly her forehead. "The cut is not deep. Have you pain anywhere?"

"No," was faintly answered.

"You can move your arms; so they are uninjured. And now, won't you just step on to the floor, and see if you can bear your weight? Let me raise you up, There, put your foot down—now the other—now take a step—now another. There are no bones broken! How glad I am!"

How earnest, how gentle, how pleased she was. There was no acting in her manner. Every tone, expression, and gesture showed that heart was in everything.

"O, I am glad!" she repeated. "It might have been so much worse."

The first glance into the young girl's face was one of identification; and even amid the terror that oppressed her heart, the unwilling visitor felt a sense of painful mortification. There was no mistaking that peculiar countenance. But how different she seemed! Her voice was singularly sweet, her manner gentle and full of kindness, and in her movements and attitude a certain ease that marked her as one not to be classed, even by the over-refined young lady who was so suddenly brought within her power, among the common herd.

All that assiduous care and kind attention could do for the unhappy girl, until the doctor's arrival, was done. After getting back to the bed from which she had been induced to rise, in order to see if all her limbs were sound, she grew sick and faint, and remained so until the physician came. He gave it as his opinion that she had received some internal injuries, and that it would not be safe to attempt her removal.

The young couple looked at each other with dismay pictured in their countenances.

"I wish it were in my power to make you more comfortable," said the kind-hearted girl, in whose humble abode they were. "What we have is at your service in welcome, and all that it is in my power to do shall be done for you cheerfully. If father was only at home—but that can't be helped."

The young man dazed upon her in wonder and shame—wonder at the charm that now appeared in her singularly marked countenance, and shame for the disgraceful and cowardly cruelty with which he had a little while before so wantonly assailed her.

The doctor was positive about the matter, and so there was no alternative. After seeing his unhappy relative in as comfortable a condition as possible, the young man, with the doctor's aid, repaired his crippled vehicle by the restoration of a linchpin, and started for the city to bear intelligence of the sad accident, and bring out the mother of the injured girl.

Alone with the person towards whom she had only a short time before acted in such shameless violation of womanly kindness and lady-like propriety, our "nice young lady" did not feel more comfortable in mind than body. Every look—every word—every tone—every act of the kind-hearted girl—was a rebuke. The delicacy of her attentions, and the absence of everything like a desire to refund her of the recent unpleasant incident, marked her as possessing, even if her face and attire were plain, and her position humble, all the elements of a true lady.

Although the doctor, when he left, did not speak very encouragingly, the vigorous system of the young girl began to react and she grew better quite rapidly so that when her parents arrived with the family physician, she was so much improved that it was at once decided to take her to the city.

For an hour before her parents came she lay feigning to be in sleep, yet observing every movement and word of her gentle attendant. It was an hour of shame, self-reproaches, and repentance. She was not really bad at heart; but false estimates of things, trifling associations, and a thoughtless disregard of others, had made her far less a lady in act than she imagined herself to be in quality. Her parents, when they arrived, overwhelmed the young girl with thankfulness; and the father, at parting, tried to induce her to accept a sum of money. But the offers seemed to disturb her.

"O, no, sir!" she said, drawing back, while a glow came into her pale face, and made it almost beautiful; "I have only done a simple duty."

"But you are poor," he urged, glancing around. "Take this, and let it make you more comfortable."

"We are contented with what God has given to us," she replied, cheerfully. "For what he gives is always the best portion. No, sir; I cannot receive money for doing only a common duty."

"Your reward is great," said the father, touched with the noble answer, "may God bless you, my good girl! And if you will not receive my money, accept my grateful thanks."

As the daughter parted from the strange young girl, she bent down and kissed her hand; then looking up into her face, with tearful eyes, she whispered for her ears alone,—

"I am punished, and you are vindicated. O, let your heart forgive me!"

"It was God whom you offended," was whispered back. "Get his forgiveness, and all will be right. You have mine, and also the prayer of my heart that you may be good and wise, for only such are happy."

The humbled girl grasped her hand tightly, and murmured, "I shall never forget you—never!"

Nor did she. If the direct offer of her father was declined, indirect benefits reached, through her means, the lonely log cottage, where everything in time put on a new and pleasant aspect, wind the surroundings of the gentle spirit that presides there were more in agreement with her true internal quality. To the thoughtless young couple the incidents of that day were a life-lesson that never passed entirely from their remembrance. They obtained a glance below the surface of things that surprised them, learning that, even in the humblest, there may be hearts in the right places—warm with pure feelings, and inspired by the noblest sentiments of humanity; and that highly as they esteem themselves on account of their position, there was one, at least, standing below them so far as external advantages were concerned, who was their superior in all the higher qualities that go to make up the real lady and gentleman.

XVII

OTHER PEOPLE'S EYES

"OUR parlor carpet is beginning to look real shabby," said Mrs. Cartwright. "I declare! if I don't feel right down ashamed of it, every time a visitor, who is anybody, calls in to see me."

"A new one will cost—"

The husband of Mrs. Cartwright, a good-natured, compliant man, who was never better pleased than when he could please his wife, paused to let her finish the sentence, which she did promptly, by saying,—

"Only forty dollars. I've counted it all up. It will take thirty-six yards. I saw a beautiful piece at Martin's—just the thing—at one dollar a yard. Binding, and other little matters, won't go beyond three or four dollars, and I can make it myself, you know."

"Only forty dollars! Mr. Cartwright glanced down at the carpet which had decorated the floor of their little parlor for nearly five years. It had a pleasant look in his eyes, for it was associated with many pleasant memories. Only forty dollars for a new one! If the cost were only five, instead of forty, the inclination to banish this old friend to an out-of-the-way chamber would have been no stronger in the mind of Mr. Cartwright. But forty dollars was an item in the calculation, and to Mr. Cartwright a serious one. Every year he was finding it harder to meet the gradually increasing demand upon his purse; for there was a steadily progressive enlargement of his family, and year after year the cost of living advanced. He was thinking of this when his wife said,—

"You know, Henry, that cousin Sally Gray is coming here on a visit week after next. Now I do want to put the very best face on to things while she is here. We were married at the same time, and I hear that her husband is getting rich. I feel a little pride about the matter, and don't want her to think that we're growing worse off than when we began life, and can't afford to replace this shabby old carpet by a new one." No further argument was needed. Mr. Cartwright had sixty dollars in one of the bureau drawers,—a fact well known to his wife. And it was also well known to her that it was the accumulation of very careful savings, designed, when the sum reached one hundred dollars, to cancel a loan made by a friend, at a time when sickness and a death in the family had run up their yearly expenses beyond the year's income. Very desirous was Mr. Cartwright to pay off this loan, and he had felt lighter in heart as those aggregate of his savings came nearer and nearer to the sum required for that purpose.

But he had no firmness to oppose his wife in anything. Her wishes in this instance, as in many others, he unwisely made a law. The argument about cousin Sally Gray was irresistible. No more than his wife did he wish to look poor in her eyes; and so, for the sake of her eyes, a new carpet was bought, and the old one—not by any means as worn and faded as the language of his wife indicated—sent up stairs to do second-hand duty in the spare bedroom.

Not within the limit of forty dollars was the expense confined. A more costly pattern than could be obtained for one dollar a yard tempted the eyes of Mrs. Cartwright, and abstracted from her husband's savings the sum of over fifty dollars. Mats and rugs to go with the carpet were indispensable, to give the parlor the right effect in the eyes of cousin Sally Gray, and the purchase of these absorbed the remainder of Mr. Cartwright's carefully hoarded sixty dollars.

Unfortunately, for the comfortable condition of Mrs. Cartwright's mind, the new carpet, with its flaunting colors, put wholly out of countenance the cane-seat chairs and modest pier table, and gave to the dull paper on the wall a duller aspect. Before, she had scarcely noticed the hangings on the Venetian blinds, now, it seemed as if they had lost their freshness in a day; and the places where they were broken, and had been sewed again, were singularly apparent every time her eye rested upon them.

"These blinds do look dreadfully!" she said to her husband, on the day after the carpet went down. "Can you remember what they cost?"

"Eight dollars," replied Mr. Cartwright.

"So much?" The wife sighed as she spoke.

"Yes, that was the price. I remember it very well."