Part 36 (2/2)
There was a rap, and as they did not expect anybody else, of course it must be her uncle; who else should it be? but it was not. It was the same porter who was there last evening. He did not bring any trunk or bundle, he simply brought a letter and a very small package; a letter addressed, ”Lucy Smith.”
Athalia was on the point of denying it, but then she thought that Mrs.
May and Stella both knew that was the name she was known by at Mrs.
Laylor's. Still she blushed and trembled. She blushed to think that she had once said of her first name, ”I never shall change that.” It is a sad thing for a girl to change that. She trembled at the thought of having any of her old acquaintances, who knew her by that name, write to her or speak to her as friends, for they were only friends of days which she would gladly blot out of memory--days of sin and shame, which she looked back upon with horror, as she felt their deep degradation. She trembled still more when she opened the letter, and saw that the signature was Frank Barkley. She felt faint, and her eyes grew dim, for she felt that she was still pursued--”the guilty flee when no man pursueth”--by one with whom she had sinned, and she felt that it was a renewal of the proposition to sin again. She saw the name, and the ”Dear Lucy” with which it commenced, she saw no more, she could see no more, and so she handed the letter to Mrs. May, with an ”oh, dear!”
Mrs. May read it, and then _she_ said, ”Oh, dear,” but it was a very different ”Oh, dear,” from Athalia's. It was an ”Oh, dear, what a fortune,” and then she handed the letter back to Athalia, and said, ”read, you will not find it very bad.” Her joyous smile rea.s.sured the fainting, trembling Athalia, and she read:
”MY DEAR LUCY.
”Dearer to me now than ever. I have heard from a mutual friend all about it. First, forgive me for the wrong I have done you.
I shall not do it again. Blush not to meet me in the street or church, for by no look or word will I ever seek to renew our acquaintance. I know you now, I never did before, and I feel that I am not worthy to renew that acquaintance. I am a man of the world, and enjoy what my own cla.s.s call pleasures. I have enjoyed pleasant hours with you, but I never enjoyed a night as I have the last. I have been alone in my room all night. I have been thinking. I have thought how much myself and my a.s.sociates have done to swell the cla.s.s of females whom we look upon with contempt, as they pa.s.s us in the street. I have found that it is good to think. I have thought a great deal of you, and of your history, as I gleaned it partly from you and partly from Mrs. Laylor, but the last and best part from your friend.
Believe me when I say that I am most sincerely glad that you have escaped from a life which I had persuaded you to adopt. I was selfish then. I am sober now.
”Of course you know I have won my bet. I have got the money. I do not need it, you do. It is your due and much more from that avaricious woman who deceived you so bitterly. You lost your watch. It was partly my fault. If I had not believed the lies told of you, it would not have happened, for then in a spirit of retaliation, I had not been false to you, nor you to me, and you would not have made the acquaintance of the gambler who stole your watch. I cannot return that, but I send one in its place. I also send you my check for the money won, and the same sum which was staked against it. If you are ever in need hereafter remember your real, truly sincere friend,
”FRANK BARKLEY.”
She looked up with tearful eyes, and simply said, ”Mrs. May, you will not have to go to the p.a.w.nbroker's to-day. Take this check and go to the bank, or I will write a note to a friend who will cash it in a minute, it needs no endors.e.m.e.nt, it is payable to the bearer, and you shall have one hundred and I the other. Now let us look at the watch.” They did look at it, and of course admire it, and then Mr. Lovetree came in, and then the letter was read again, and then he said, ”the fellow has got a heart after all, it has only been spoiled by bad a.s.sociations; he has got a good start now in the right path, and I shall make it my business to look him up and help him along. Do you know, Athalia, where he lives?”
”I have his card, sir, in my trunk.”
”Very well, give it to me at your leisure, and we will let him know that the pearls of that letter have not been cast before the very worst sort of pigs.”
Then Stella was going out to get the check changed, and then he said, ”Never mind, give it to me,” and then he put it in his pocket-book very carefully, and put that away in his left-hand pocket--he had a place for everything; and then he put his hand into his right-hand pocket, and took out fifty dollars in gold, and handed that to Athalia, with the remark that he would bring her the balance to-morrow, that that was as much as she would want to-day; and then he said, as he saw her slipping it slyly into Mrs. May's hand, ”Oh, that is it, is it?” and then Mrs.
May said, ”she _must_ tell, and then she did tell all about her want of money, and how she used to go to Athalia when she was in want, and now, when neither of them had any, it did seem as though the good spirit had opened the heart of that man to repentance and good works, just when it was most needed.”
And then they all went out, Mrs. May and Stella to hunt for the shop, which they found and had in operation in a week, and which was the foundation of a fortune, for it prospered wonderfully. The ball only needed a start, it would acc.u.mulate at every roll. It is acc.u.mulating still. I wish a few more benevolent old gentlemen would take each one of them a little girl out of the street, and set the ball to rolling.
Good bye, Mrs. May--good bye, Stella. ”We may never meet again, but we never shall forget you, good-hearted little girl, and kind, blessed, good mother. Thy good works have their reward.”
Athalia and her uncle found a house. We have heard of that before, from Maggie; we shall hear of them again, in some of these s.h.i.+fting ”Scenes.”
I shall draw the curtain now. It may remain down for one or two or more years, what does it matter to the reader? It is facts that he wants, he cares nothing for time, or which scene comes first. If the reader is a woman, she cares neither for time nor facts, so that the story is good.
What next?
Look in the next chapter.
CHAPTER XIV.
NEW SCENES AND NEW CHARACTERS.
”There is some soul of goodness in things evil, Would man observingly distil it out.”
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