Kristy's Rainy Day Picnic Part 10

"Where is the child to go?" at last she asked.

"Indeed, ma'am, I don't know, unless she goes into the streets," said the policeman.

"I'll take her," said Miss Barnes.

"It'll be a heavenly charity if you do, ma'am," replied the man.

Miss Barnes turned to the girl.

"Nora, will you go with me?"

"Yes 'm," gasped Nora, with hungry soul looking out of her eyes.

"Come, then," said the lady shortly, leading the way out.

Thomas, holding the door of the carriage, was struck dumb with horror to see the apparition, but the timid little figure kept close to his mistress, and she wore such a look that the old servant dared not speak.

"To a respectable bath house," was Miss Barnes's order.

Thomas bowed, reached his seat somehow, and drove off.

"Not pretty, decidedly," thought Miss Barnes, looking steadily at the wondering face opposite hers, "but at least not coa.r.s.e. Dress will improve her."

At the door of the bathing rooms, Thomas again threw open the carriage door. Miss Barnes went in with Nora, gave her into the hands of the young woman in charge, with directions to have her thoroughly bathed and combed, and otherwise made ready for new clothes that she would bring.

The amazed young woman marched off with the unresisting Nora, and Miss Barnes went shopping. She bought a complete outfit, from hat to shoes, and in an hour returned to the bath rooms, to find Nora waiting. She was soon dressed, much to her own surprise, for she hardly knew the names of half the articles she had on, and they were once more in the carriage. As for Thomas, he thought wonders would never cease that morning.

As they rolled home, Miss Barnes said:--

"Now, Nora, you're to live with me and be my girl. You're not Nora Dennis; you're Nora Barnes. You're to forget your old life--at least as much as you can," she added, seeing a shade come over Nora's face.

"And on no account are you to speak of it to the servants in my house.

Do you understand?"

"Yes 'm," said Nora.

"I shall try to make your life happy," Miss Barnes went on a little more tenderly. "I shall educate you"--

"Please, ma'am, what's that?" asked Nora timidly.

"Teach you to read and write," said Miss Barnes, wincing as she reflected how much there was to do in this neglected field.

"And, Nora," she went on, "I shall expect you to do as I tell you, and always to tell me the truth."

"Shall I stay at your house and be warm?" asked Nora.

"Always, poor child, if you try to do right," said Miss Barnes.

"Are these things mine?" was the next question, looking lovingly at her pretty blue dress and cloak.

"Yes, and you shall have plenty of clothes, and always enough to eat, Nora. I hope you will never again be so miserable as I found you."

Nora could not comprehend what had come to her. She sat there as though stupefied, only now and then whispering to herself, "Always enough to eat, always warm."

"Thomas," said Miss Barnes, in her most peremptory manner, as he held the carriage-door for her to alight, "I especially desire that you should not mention to any one where I got this child. I want to make a new life for her, and I trust to your honor to keep her secret."

Thomas touched his hat.

"Indeed, you may be sure of me, Miss Barnes."

And faithfully he kept his word, although all the household was in consternation when Miss Barnes installed the child as her adopted daughter, procured a governess for her, had a complete outfit of suitable clothes prepared, and, above all, took unwearied pains to teach her all the little things necessary to place her on a level with the girls she would meet when she went to school.

Nora soon learned the ways and manners of a lady. She seemed to be instinctively delicate and lady-like. She was pretty, too, when her face grew plump and the hungry look went out of her eyes.

Miss Barnes, though on the sharp lookout, never discovered a vice in her. Whatever may have been her original faults, she seemed to have shed them with her rags, and the great grat.i.tude she felt for her benefactor overwhelmed everything. She seemed to live but to do something for Miss Barnes.

To Nora, life was like a dream--a dream of heaven, at that. Always warm, always fed, always safe from roughness, surrounded by things so beautiful she scarcely dared to touch them; every want attended to before it was felt. It was too wonderful to seem true. In dreams she would often return to the desolate shanty, where the winds blew through the cracks, and the rickety old stove was no better fed than her mother and herself.

Five years rolled away. Miss Barnes grew to love this child of poverty very much, and to be grieved that she showed none of the joy of youth.

For Nora walked around as though in a dream. She was always anxious to please, always cheerful, but never gay. She was too subdued. She never spoke loud. She never slammed a door, she never laughed.

"Nora," said she one day, after studying her face some time in silence, "why are you not like other young girls?"

"Why am I unlike them?" asked Nora, looking up from the book she was reading.

"You're not a bit like any young girl I ever saw," said Miss Barnes; "you're too sober, you never laugh and play."

"I don't know how to play," said Nora, in a low tone; "I never did."

"Poor child," said Miss Barnes, "you never had any childhood. I wanted to give you one, but you were too old when I took you. Why, you're a regular old woman."

"Am I?" said Nora, with a smile.

"I don't know what I'll do to you," Miss Barnes went on. "I'd like to make you over."

"I wish you could," said Nora earnestly. "I try to be like other girls, but somehow I can't. I seem always to have a sort of weight on my heart."

"Nora, isn't there something you would like that I haven't done for you? Haven't you a wish?"

"Oh!" cried Nora, "I can't wish for anything, you make me too happy, but"--she hesitated, and tears began to fall fast--"I can't forget my old life, it comes back in my dreams, it is always before me. I don't want to tell you, but I must. I can't help thinking about the many miserable girls, such as I was, living in horrid shanties, starved, frozen, beaten, wretched."

"Then you have a wish?" said Miss Barnes softly.

"Oh, it seems so ungrateful!" Nora sobbed. "Such a poor return for the life you have given me! I have tried to forget. I can't tell what is right for me to do. I'm sorry I said anything."

"No, Nora," said Miss Barnes promptly. "You should tell me all your wishes and feelings. If they are wrong, I can help you outgrow them; if right"--she hesitated--"why, I must help you."

Nora fell on her knees with the most impulsive movement Miss Barnes, had ever seen.