CHAPTER XXXII.
IT WAS THE OVERFLOWING DROP OF SORROW IN THE CUPTHAT ALREADY BRIMMED OVER.
"Alone with my hopeless sorrow, No other mate I know! I strive to awake tomorrow, But the dull words will not flow. I pray--but my prayers are driven Aside by the angry Heaven, And weigh me down with woe!"
Young, beautiful, penniless, and alone in the world! Oh, what a cruelfate!
Dainty realized it in all its bitterness when she arrived in Richmondthat dull October day, and found the first snow of the season severalinches deep on the ground, making her shiver with cold in her thinsummer gown and straw hat.
But her heart was warm with the thought of the dear mother she was goingto rejoin.
What a glad reunion it would be for both in spite of her bittertroubles, when, clasped in that dear mother's arms, she should lay herweary head on that dear breast, and sob out all her grief tosympathizing ears.
She had a little money in a small purse that Franklin had forced her totake as a loan, and she hired a cab to take her to her old home, whereshe had not a doubt of still finding her mother.
Alas! what was her horror to find the small house burned to the ground!
Dismissing the cab, she started on a round of the neighborhood, seekingnews of the dear one.
But there were new neighbors in the sparsely settled place, and no oneknew anything about the little lady who had kept boarders at the houseon the corner.
Half frozen with the bitter cold, she dragged herself to the cornergrocery, thinking that Mr. Sparks could surely give her someinformation.
His stolid, well-fed face was the first familiar one she had met, andshe wondered why he wore that broad band of crape about his coat-sleeve.
"Is it really you, Miss Chase? Well, well! you're quite a stranger! Beenill? You don't look as blooming as when you went away in the summer.Well, it was hard on you losing your little mother in that cruelfashion! But death is no respecter of persons. He robbed me of my ailingwife about the same time your mother was called. What! you don'tunderstand? Bless me! the girl's dropped like I'd shot her! Ailsa!Ailsa!" he called in alarm, as he picked up the unconscious girl, andhurried with her to the back of the store, which was also his dwelling.
Then a pretty, brown-eyed girl, sitting with several noisy children,sprang up, and cried in wonder:
"What is the matter?"
"Here's your old neighbor and school-mate, Ailsa, little Dainty Chase.She came into the store, and I was talking to her about the death of mywife and her mother, when she dropped in a sort of fit. See to her, willyou, while I run back to my customers?"
Pretty Ailsa Scott hastened to resuscitate her old school-mate, andwhen she revived, was startled to hear her sob, hysterically:
"I came to find my mother, Ailsa. I have been lost from her for wretchedmonths; but your step-father told me she was dead! Oh, it can not betrue! God would not be so cruel!"
Ailsa Scott had passed through the recent loss of her own mother, andshe knew what a blow it would be to Dainty when she heard the crueltruth; but there was no escaping it, so she clasped her gentle armsabout the stricken girl, saying sadly:
"It makes my heart ache for you, dear Dainty, but it would be useless todeceive you. About the time that mother lay in her last sickness it wasrumored that your mother came back here the very day after the house wasburned. I did not see her myself, but it was in all the papers that shewent suddenly insane, and after wandering wildly about the city all day,calling for you, took poison and died in an alley. I do not know whereshe is buried, for mother was so very ill, and died the same week. Sincethen I've had my heart and hands both full with the care of thechildren, and teaching school, too, for I would not depend on mystep-father for a penny. You know"--whispering--"I always hated him, andthere wasn't much love lost between us. Indeed, I wouldn't have stayedhere a day after mother's death only for my little half-brothers andsisters. He had no relations to help him, and hired help is not veryreliable. He keeps a servant, but they tell me she is unkind to thechildren when I'm at school. If you have no friends to go to, dear, Iwish you would stay with me awhile, and look after the little ones whileI'm away."
It was a delicate offer of a shelter, for Ailsa's eyes had taken in thepoverty of her guest, and Dainty was but too glad of a refuge in whichto nurse her deep despair.
When Ailsa informed her step-father questioningly of her offer, hesmiled approval, and made Dainty welcome in his simple home, whiletender-hearted Ailsa soothed her all she could in the bitterness of herbereavement.
"We are both orphans, dear, and we can sympathize with each other," shesaid, tenderly, and helped her friend to get some neat mourning gowns,in which she looked so frail and lily-like that she seemed to be fadingaway like a broken flower.
She tended patiently on the little children and won their love, and theexuberant gratitude of their father, this latter so effusive that itgrew irksome to the sorrowful, reserved girl.
"Oh, Ailsa, I do not wish to seem ungrateful, but I dislike the man asmuch as you do, and his attentions are getting too pointed to beagreeable. I am afraid I shall have to leave you and the dear children,much as I love you," she sighed, in December, after two quiet months inthe little house; and her friend rejoined, indignantly:
"I see he is trying to court you, although his wife, my dear mother, hasbeen dead but a few months. Oh, why did she ever marry such a brute? Ibelieve he broke her heart, for it was a strange decline of which shedied. He was always flirting with his women customers, and scolded hiswife harshly when she objected. He made her bitterly unhappy, thecoarse, unfaithful wretch, and that is why I hate him so for my own papanever spoke an unkind word to her up to the day of his death. You willhave to repulse him, but not too unkindly to arouse his enmity."
But the crisis came suddenly the next day while Ailsa was at school.Mr. Sparks boldly proposed marriage to the indignant girl.
Her blue eyes flashed disdain upon him, as she cried:
"How can you be so coarse and unfeeling, sir, showing so little respectto the memory of the wife dead but a few months?"
"She is as dead now as she will be in ten years hence!" he replied, witha grin that filled her with disgust; while he added, wheedlingly: "But Iknow how particular women folks are over these trifles, and I would havewaited till spring before I spoke to you on the subject, but the factis, the neighbors are gossiping about my keeping house with two prettygirls, and neither one any kin to me. So I thought I'd better marry oneof them, and shut scandal's mouth. And as for Ailsa, I never liked her.She is always throwing up to me that her pa was a nicer man than I am.But as for you, Dainty, I worship the very ground you walk on, and I'llmarry you to-morrow if you'll say the word."
"I can't marry you, sir. I--I--oh I am going right away, Mr. Sparks! Icouldn't breathe the same air with a man that was so disrespectful tohis first wife's memory as to court another in three months after herdeath!" the young girl cried, in passionate disgust, arousing suchbitter spite that the rejected suitor cast courtesy to the winds,rejoining, hotly:
"Go, then, Miss Pert, and the sooner the better! Shall I call a wagon totake your trunk?" sarcastically.
"You know I have no trunk, Mr. Sparks, but I will pack my valise atonce, and perhaps you will let it stay till I can take it away. I mustrent a room somewhere first," she murmured.
"No; take it with you, I say. Your clothes might get contaminatedbreathing the same air with me!" he answered, angrily.
So presently Dainty went away in the teeth of a howling winter storm,without a penny in her purse, or a shelter for her head, while thelittle ones sobbed out to Ailsa when she returned that bad papa haddriven sweet Dainty away.