Part 24 (2/2)

”He is so deliciously homely,” she said, ”I like to look at him.”

He came at the hour appointed, and his visit was truly a ”spiritual”

one, if enlivened spirits, more hopeful hearts, and a richer belief in their Divine Father's goodwill toward them all were the legitimate result of a spiritual visit. Mr. Jocelyn, in expectancy of the guest, had carefully prepared himself in guilty secrecy, and appeared unusually well, but he was the only one who sighed deeply after the good man's departure. Rising from the depths of his soul through his false exhilaration was a low, threatening voice, saying, ”That man is true; you are a sham, and your hollowness will become known.”

Indeed, Mr. Wentworth went away with a vague impression that there was something unreal or unsound about Mr. Jocelyn, and he began to share Mrs. Wheaton's painful forebodings for the family. Belle enjoyed the visit greatly, for the minister was an apostle of a very sunny gospel, and she was then ready for no other. Moreover, the healthful, unwarped man delighted in the girl's frolicsome youth, and no more tried to repress her vivacity than he would the bubble and sparkle of a spring. Indeed he was sensible enough to know that, as the spring keeps pure by flowing and sparkling into the light, so her nature would stand a far better chance of remaining untainted if given abundant yet innocent scope. His genial words had weight with her, but her quick intuition of his sympathy, his sense of humor, which was as genuine as her own, had far more weight, and their eyes rarely met without responsive smiles. There was nothing trivial, however, in their interplay of mirthfulness--nothing that would prevent the child from coming to him should her heart become burdened with sin or sorrow. She was a.s.signed to Miss Wetheridge's cla.s.s, and soon became warmly attached to her teacher.

Mildred, to her great surprise, was asked to take a cla.s.s of rude-looking, half-grown boys. In answer to her look of dismay, Mr. Wentworth only said smilingly, ”Try it; trust my judgment; you can do more with those boys than I can.”

”Were it not for my promise to Miss Wetheridge, I shouldn't even dare think of such a thing,” she replied; ”but I now feel bound to attempt it, although I hope you will soon give me some very, very little girls.”

”In complying you show a high sense of honor, Miss Jocelyn. I will relieve you after a time, if you wish me to,” and the student of human nature walked away with a peculiar smile. ”When I was a harum-scarum boy,” he muttered, ”a girl with such a face could almost make me wors.h.i.+p her. I don't believe boys have changed.”

She was shrewd enough not to let the cla.s.s see that she was afraid; and being only boys, they saw merely what was apparent--that they had the prettiest teacher in the room. Her beauty and refinement impressed them vaguely, yet powerfully; the incipient man within them yielded its involuntary homage, and she appealed to their masculine traits as only a woman of tact can, making them feel that it would be not only wrong but ungallant and unmannerly to take advantage of her. They all speedily succ.u.mbed except one, whose rude home a.s.sociations and incorrigible disposition rendered futile her appeals. After two or three Sabbaths the other boys became so incensed that he should disgrace the cla.s.s that after school they lured him into an alleyway and were administering a well-deserved castigation, when Mildred, who was pa.s.sing, rescued him. His fear induced him to yield to her invitation to accompany her home; and her kindness, to which he knew he was not ent.i.tled, combined with the wholesome effect of the pummelling received from the boys, led him to unite in making the cla.s.s--once known as ”the Incorrigibles”--the best behaved in the school.

Everything apparently now promised well for the Jocelyns. Their mistaken policy of seclusion and shrinking from contact with the world during their impoverishment had given way to kindly Christian influences, and they were forming the best a.s.sociations their lot permitted. All might have gone to their ultimate advantage had it not been for the hidden element of weakness so well known to the reader, but as yet unsuspected by the family.

If Mr. Jocelyn had been able to put forth the efforts of a sound and rational man, he could, with the aid of his daughters, even in those times of depression, have pa.s.sed safely through the trials of sudden poverty, and eventually--having learned wisdom from the past experience--he could have regained a better and more stable financial position than the one lost. Thus far he had been able to maintain considerable self-control, and by daily experience knew just about how much morphia he could take without betraying himself.

His family had become accustomed to its effects, and ascribed them to the peculiar state of his health. Loving eyes are often the most blind, and that which is seen daily ceases to seem strange. Beyond their natural solicitude over his failing appet.i.te, his unwholesome complexion, and his loss of flesh, they had no misgivings. His decline was so very gradual that there was nothing to startle them.

Every day they hoped to see a change for the better, and sought to bring it about by preparing such dainty dishes as were within their means to catch his capricious appet.i.te, and by keeping all their little perplexities and worriments to themselves, so that he might have unbroken rest when free from business. He recognized their unselfish and considerate devotion, and it added to the horrible depression into which he sank more and more deeply the moment he pa.s.sed from under the influence of the fatal drug. He was living over an abyss, and that which kept him from its depths was deepening and widening it daily. He still had the vague hope that at some time and in some way he could escape; but days and weeks were pa.s.sing, bringing no change for the better, no honest, patient effort to regain the solid ground of safety. He was drifting down, and when at times he became conscious of the truth, a larger dose of morphia was his one method of benumbing the terror that seemed groping for his heart with a death-cold hand.

Mildred soon began to make rapid progress in her studies, and grew hopeful over the fact. If her father would give her the chance she could make a place for herself among skilled workers within a year, and be able, if there were need, to provide for the entire family. Great and prolonged dest.i.tution rarely occurs, even in a crowded city, unless there is much sickness or some destructive vice. Wise economy, patient and well-directed effort, as a rule, secure comfort and independence, if not affluence; but continued illness, disaster, and especially sin, often bring with them a train of evils difficult to describe.

Mildred found time between her lessons to aid her mother and also to do a little fancy work, for which, through the aid of Miss Wetheridge, she found private customers who were willing to pay its worth.

Thus the month of October was pa.s.sing rapidly and rather hopefully away. They received letters from Clara Bute occasionally, wherein she expressed herself well content with the country and the situation Mrs. Atwood had obtained for her. ”I'm getting as plump and rosy as Susan,” she wrote, ”and I'm not coming back to town. Going up and down those tenement stairs tired me more than all the work I do here. Still, I work hard, I can tell you; but it's all sorts of work, with plenty of good air and good food to do it on. I'm treated better than I ever was before--just like one of the family, and there's a young farmer who takes me out to ride sometimes, and he acts and talks like a man.”

Whether this attentive friend were Roger or a new acquaintance she did not say. For some reason a reticence in regard to the former characterized her letters.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE OLD ASTRONOMER

One Sat.u.r.day night Mildred was awakened from time to time by the wailing of a child. The sounds came from the rooms of the Ulphs, which were directly overhead, and by morning she was convinced that there was a case of serious illness in the German family. Led by her sympathies, and also by the hope of thawing the reserve of the eccentric old astronomer, she resolved to go and ask if she could be of any help.

In response to her light knock a shock-headed, unkempt boy opened the door and revealed a state of chaos that might well have driven mad any student of the heavenly bodies with their orderly ways.

There seemed to be one place for everything--the middle of the floor--and about everything was in this one place. In the midst of a desolation anything but picturesque, Mrs. Ulph sat before the fire with a little moaning baby upon her lap.

”I heard your child crying in the night,” said Mildred gently, ”and as we are neighbors I thought I would come up and see if I could help you.”

The woman stared a moment and then asked, ”You Miss Schoslin?”

”Yes, and I hope you will let me do something, for I fear you've been up all night and must be very tired.”

”I'm shust dead; not von vink of schleep haf I had all der night.

He shust cry und cry, and vat I do I don't know. I fear he die. Der fader gone for der doctor, but he die 'fore dey gets here. Schee, he getten gold now.”

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