Ruth Hall: A Domestic Tale of the Present Time. Fern Fanny

yet, he had not become so professionally hardened, as to be able to look unmoved upon the group before him, whose imploring eyes asked vainly of him the help no mortal hand could give.

      A few questions he asked to avoid being questioned himself; a few remedies he tried, to appease the mother’s heart, whose mournful eyes were on him like a spell.

      “Water,” said Daisy, faintly, as she languidly opened her eyes.

      “God be thanked,” said Ruth, overcome by the sound of that blessed little voice, which she never expected to hear again, “God be thanked.”

      The young doctor returned no answering smile, as Ruth and Harry grasped his hand; but he walked to the little window and looked out upon the gray dawn, with a heavy sigh, as the first faint streak of light ushered in the new-born day.

      Still the fire-light flashed and flickered – now upon the old doctor, who had fallen asleep in his arm chair; now upon Ruth’s bowed head; now upon Daisy, who lay motionless in her mother’s lap, (the deadly paleness of her countenance rendered still more fearful by the dark blood-stains on her night dress;) then upon Harry, who, kneeling at Daisy’s side, and stifling his own strong heart, gazed alternately at mother and child; then upon Dinah, who, with folded arms, stood like some grim sentinel, in the shadow of the farther corner; the little mantle clock, meanwhile, ticking, ticking on – numbering the passing moments with startling distinctness.

      Oh, in such an hour, when wave after wave of anguish dashes over us, where are the infidel’s boasted doubts, as the tortured heart cries out, instinctively, “save, Lord; or we perish!”

      Slowly the night waned, and the stars paled. Up the gray east the golden sun slowly glided. One beam penetrated the little window, hovering like a halo over Daisy’s sunny head. A quick, convulsive start, and with one wild cry (as the little throat filled to suffocation), the fair white arms were tossed aloft, then dropped powerless upon the bed of Death!

      CHAPTER XXIII

      “There can be no sorrow greater than this sorrow,” sobbed Ruth, as the heavy sod fell on Daisy’s little breast.

      In after years, when bitterer cups had been drained to the dregs, Ruth remembered these, her murmuring words. Ah! mourning mother! He who seeth the end from the beginning, even in this blow “remembered mercy.”

      “Your daughter-in-law is quite crushed by her affliction, I hear,” said a neighbor to old Mrs. Hall.

      “Yes, Mrs. Jones, I think she is,” said the old lady complacently. “It has taken right hold of her.”

      “It died of croup, I believe,” said Mrs. Jones.

      “Well, they say so,” said the old lady. “It is my opinion the child’s death was owing to the thriftlessness of the mother. I don’t mourn for it, because I believe the poor thing is better off.”

      “You surprise me,” said Mrs. Jones. “I always had the impression that young Mrs. Hall was a pattern mother.”

      “People differ,” said the old lady, raising her eyebrows, compressing her lips, and looking mysteriously at the ceiling, as if she could tell a tale, were she not too charitable.

      “Well, the amount of it is,” said the garrulous old doctor, emerging from the corner; “the amount of it is, that the mother always thought she knew better than anybody else how to manage that child. Now, you know, Mis. Jones, I’m a physician, and ought to know something about the laws that govern the human body, but you’ll be astonished to hear that she frequently acted directly contrary to my advice, and this is the result; that tells the whole story. However, as Mis. Hall says, the child is better off; and as to Ruth, why the Lord generally sends afflictions where they are needed;” and the doctor returned to his corner.

      “It looks very lonely at the Glen since they moved away,” remarked Mrs. Jones. “I suppose they don’t think of coming back.”

      “How?” replied the doctor, re-appearing from his corner.

      “I suppose your son and his wife have no idea of returning to the Glen,” said Mrs. Jones.

      “No – no. Ruth is one of the uneasy kind; it’s coming and going – coming and going with her. She fancied everything in doors and out reminded her of Daisy, and kept wandering round, trying to be rid of herself. Now that proves she didn’t make a sanctifying use of her trouble. It’s no use trying to dodge what the Lord sends. We’ve just got to stand and take it; if we don’t, he’ll be sending something else. Them’s my sentiments, and I consider ’em scripteral. I shouldn’t be surprised if Harry was taken away from her; – a poor, miserable thing she’d be to take care of herself, if he was. She couldn’t earn the salt to her porridge. Thriftless, Mis. Jones, thriftless – come of a bad stock – can’t expect good fruit off a wild apple tree, at least, not without grace is grafted on; that tells the whole story.”

      “Well; my heart aches for her,” said the kind Mrs. Jones. “Mrs. Hall is very delicately organized, – one of those persons capable of compressing the happiness or misery of a lifetime into a few moments.”

      “Stuff,” said the doctor, “stuff; don’t believe it. I’m an example to the contrary. I’ve been through everything, and just look at me;” and the doctor advanced a pace or two to give Mrs. Jones a better view of his full-blown peony face, and aldermanic proportions; “don’t believe it, Mis. Jones; stuff! Fashion to be sentimental; nerves a modern invention. Ridiculous!”

      “But,” said the persistent Mrs. Jones, “don’t you think, doctor, that – ”

      “Don’t think anything about it,” said the doctor. “Don’t want to hear anything about it. Have no patience with any woman who’d let a husband sell a farm at such a sacrifice as Harry’s was sold, merely because there was a remote chance she would become insane if she staid there. Now, I’ve enough to do – plenty to do, but, still, I was willing to superintend that farm a little, as my doing so was such a help to Harry. Well, well; they’ll both go to the dogs, that’s the amount of it. A rolling stone gathers no moss. Harry was good for something before he married Ruth; had a mind of his own. Ruth aint the wife for him.”

      “He did not appear to think so,” replied the obstinate Mrs. Jones. “Everybody in the village says, ‘what a happy couple they are.’”

      “O-o-h– my!” hissed the old lady, “did you ever, doctor? Of course, Mrs. Jones, you don’t suppose Harry would be such a fool as to tell people how miserable he was; but mothers, Mrs. Jones, mothers are keen-sighted; can’t throw dust in a mother’s eyes.”

      “Nor in mine,” retorted the independent Mrs. Jones, with a mock courtesy to the old lady, as she walked out the door, muttering as she went down the road, “Sally Jones will tell her the truth if nobody else will.”

      “Mis. Hall,” said the doctor, drawing himself up so straight as to snap off his waist-band button, “this is the last time that woman ever crosses my threshold. I shall tell Deacon Smith that I consider her a proper subject for church discipline; she’s what the bible calls ‘a busy body in other men’s matters;’ a character which both you and I despise and abominate, Mis. Hall.”

      CHAPTER XXIV

      The first-born! Oh, other tiny feet may trip lightly at the hearth-stone; other rosy faces may greet us round the board; with tender love we soothe their childish pains and share their childish sports; but “Benjamin is not,” is written in the secret chamber of many a bereaved mother’s heart, where never more the echo of a childish voice may ring out such liquid music as death hath hushed.

      Spring had garlanded the earth with flowers, and Autumn had withered them with his frosty breath. Many a Summer’s sun, and many a Winter’s snow, had rested on Daisy’s grave, since the date of our last chapter.

      At the window of a large hotel in one of those seaport towns, the resort alike of the invalid and pleasure-seeker, sat Ruth; the fresh sea-breeze lifting her hair from temples thinner and paler than of yore, but