Part 8 (1/2)

”Are you ill, to-day?”

The simple question had a startling effect on the old woman. She raised herself on one elbow, and reached out for Joyce's hand, drawing her eagerly nearer. ”Ah,” she cried, ”you speak the language that my husband taught me to love, and the tongue my little children lisped; but they are all dead now, and I've come back to my native land to find no home but the one that charity provides.”

Her words ended in a wail, and she sank back on her pillow. ”And this is my birthday,” she went on. ”Seventy-three years old, and a pauper, cast out to the care of strangers.”

The tears ran down her wrinkled cheeks, and her mouth trembled pitifully. Joyce was distressed; she looked around for Sister Denisa, but saw that they were alone, they two, in the great bare dormitory, with its long rows of narrow white cots. The child felt utterly helpless to speak a word of comfort, although she was so sorry for the poor lonely old creature that she began to cry softly to herself. She leaned over, and taking one of the thin, blue-veined hands in hers, patted it tenderly with her plump little fingers.

”I ought not to complain,” said the trembling voice, still broken by sobs. ”We have food and shelter and suns.h.i.+ne and the sisters. Ah, that little Sister Denisa, she is indeed a smile of G.o.d to us all. But at seventy-three one wants more than a cup of coffee and a clean handkerchief. One wants something besides a bed and being just Number Thirty-one among two hundred other paupers.”

”I am _so_ sorry!” exclaimed Joyce, with such heartfelt earnestness that the sobbing woman felt the warmth of her sympathy, and looked up with a brighter face.

”Talk to me,” she exclaimed. ”It has been so long since I have heard your language.”

While she obeyed Joyce kept thinking of her Grandmother Ware. She could see her outdoors among her flowers, the dahlias and touch-me-nots, the four-o'clocks and the cinnamon roses, taking such pride and pleasure in her sweet posy beds. She could see her beside the little table on the shady porch, making tea for some old neighbor who had dropped in to spend the afternoon with her. Or she was asleep in her armchair by the western window, her Bible in her lap and a smile on her sweet, kindly face. How dreary and empty the days must seem to poor old Number Thirty-one, with none of these things to brighten them.

Joyce could scarcely keep the tears out of her voice while she talked.

Later, when Sister Denisa came back, Joyce was softly humming a lullaby, and Number Thirty-one, with a smile on her pitiful old face, was sleeping like a little child.

”You will come again, dear mademoiselle,” said Sister Denisa, as she kissed the child good-by at the door. ”You have brought a blessing, may you carry one away as well!”

Joyce looked inquiringly at madame. ”You may come whenever you like,”

was the answer. ”Marie can bring you whenever you are in town.”

Joyce was so quiet on the way home that madame feared the day had been too fatiguing for her. ”No,” said Joyce, soberly. ”I was only thinking about poor old Number Thirty-one. I am sorrier for her than I was for Jules. I used to think that there was nothing so sad as being a little child without any father or mother, and having to live in an asylum.

I've often thought how lovely it would be to go around and find a beautiful home for every little orphan in the world. But I believe, now, that it is worse to be old that way. Old people can't play together, and they haven't anything to look forward to, and it makes them so miserable to remember all the things they have had and lost. If I had enough money to adopt anybody, I would adopt some poor old grandfather or grandmother and make'm happy all the rest of their days.”

CHAPTER VIII.

CHRISTMAS PLANS AND AN ACCIDENT.

That night, when Marie came in to light the lamps and brush Joyce's hair before dinner, she had some news to tell.

”Brossard has been sent away from the Ciseaux place,” she said. ”A new man is coming to-morrow, and my friend, Clotilde Robard, has already taken the position of housekeeper. She says that a very different life has begun for little Monsieur Jules, and that in his fine new clothes one could never recognize the little goatherd. He looks now like what he is, a gentleman's son. He has the room next to monsieur's, all freshly furnished, and after New Year a tutor is coming from Paris.

”But they say that it is pitiful to see how greatly the child fears his uncle. He does not understand the old man's cold, forbidding manner, and it provokes monsieur to have the little one tremble and grow pale whenever he speaks. Clotilde says that Madame Greville told monsieur that the boy needed games and young companions to make him more like other children, and he promised her that Monsieur Jules should come over here to-morrow afternoon to play with you.”

”Oh, good!” cried Joyce. ”We'll have another barbecue if the day is fine. I am so glad that we do not have to be bothered any more by those tiresome old goats.”

By the time the next afternoon arrived, however, Joyce was far too much interested in something else to think of a barbecue. Cousin Kate had come back from Paris with a trunk full of pretty things, and a plan for the coming Christmas. At first she thought of taking only madame into her confidence, and preparing a small Christmas tree for Joyce; but afterwards she concluded that it would give the child more pleasure if she were allowed to take part in the preparations. It would keep her from being homesick by giving her something else to think about.

Then madame proposed inviting a few of the little peasant children who had never seen a Christmas tree. The more they discussed the plan the larger it grew, like a rolling s...o...b..ll. By lunch-time madame had a list of thirty children, who were to be bidden to the Noel fete, and Cousin Kate had decided to order a tree tall enough to touch the ceiling.

When Jules came over, awkward and shy with the consciousness of his new clothes, he found Joyce sitting in the midst of yards of gaily colored tarletan. It was heaped up around her in bright ma.s.ses of purple and orange and scarlet and green, and she was making it into candy-bags for the tree.

In a few minutes Jules had forgotten all about himself, and was as busy as she, pinning the little stocking-shaped patterns in place, and carefully cutting out those fascinating bags.

”You would be lots of help,” said Joyce, ”if you could come over every day, for there's all the ornaments to unpack, and the corn to sh.e.l.l, and pop, and string. It will take most of my time to dress the dolls, and there's such a short time to do everything in.”

”You never saw any pop-corn, did you, Jules?” asked Cousin Kate. ”When I was here last time, I couldn't find it anywhere in France; but the other day a friend told me of a grocer in Paris, who imports it for his American customers every winter. So I went there. Joyce, suppose you get the popper and show Jules what the corn is like.”