with that peculiar wintry sound which betokens that snow is falling; it was very, very cold; the fire was out; and the girl who sat plying her needle by the hearth, which was still a little warmer than the rest of the room, had wrapped up her feet in an old worn-out piece of flannel, and had an old black silk wadded cloak thrown over her to keep her from being almost perished. The room was scantily furnished, and bore an air of extreme poverty, amounting almost to absolute destitution. One by one the little articles of property possessed by its inmates had disappeared to supply the calls of urgent want. An old four-post bedstead, with curtains of worn-out serge, stood in one corner; one mattress, with two small thin pillows, and a bolster that was almost flat; three old blankets, cotton sheets of the coarsest description upon it: three rush-bottomed chairs, an old claw-table, very ancient dilapidated chest of drawers – at the top of which were a few battered band-boxes – a miserable bit of carpet before the fire-place; a wooden box for coals; a little low tin fender, a poker, or rather half a poker; a shovel and tongs, much the worse for wear, and a very few kitchen utensils, was all the furniture in the room. What there was, however, was kept clean; the floor was clean, the yellow paint was clean; and, I forgot to say, there was a washing-tub set aside in one corner.
The wind blew shrill, and shook the window, and the snow was heard beating against the panes; the clock went another quarter, but still the indefatigable toiler sewed on. Now and then she lifted up her head, as a sigh came from that corner of the room where the bed stood, and some one might be heard turning and tossing uneasily upon the mattress – then she returned to her occupation and plied her needle with increased assiduity.
The workwoman was a girl of from eighteen to twenty, rather below the middle size, and of a face and form little adapted to figure in a story. One whose life, in all probability, would never be diversified by those romantic adventures which real life in general reserves to the beautiful and the highly-gifted. Her features were rather homely, her hair of a light brown, without golden threads through it, her hands and arms rough and red with cold and labor; her dress ordinary to a degree – her clothes being of the cheapest materials – but then, these clothes were so neat, so carefully mended where they had given way; the hair was so smooth, and so closely and neatly drawn round the face; and the face itself had such a sweet expression, that all the defects of line and color were redeemed to the lover of expression, rather than beauty.
She did not look patient, she did not look resigned; she could not look cheerful exactly. She looked earnest, composed, busy, and exceedingly kind. She had not, it would seem, thought enough of self in the midst of her privations, to require the exercise of the virtues of patience and resignation; she was so occupied with the sufferings of others that she never seemed to think of her own.
She was naturally of the most cheerful, hopeful temper in the world – those people without selfishness usually are. And, though sorrow had a little lowered the tone of her spirits to composure, and work and disappointment had faded the bright colors of hope; still hope was not entirely gone, nor cheerfulness exhausted. But, the predominant expression of every word, and look, and tone, and gesture, was kindness – inexhaustible kindness.
I said she lifted up her head from time to time, as a sigh proceeded from the bed, and its suffering inhabitant tossed and tossed: and at last she broke silence and said,
"Poor Myra, can't you get to sleep?"
"It is so fearfully cold," was the reply; "and when will you have done, and come to bed?"
"One quarter of an hour more, and I shall have finished it. Poor Myra, you are so nervous, you never can get to sleep till all is shut up – but have patience, dear, one little quarter of an hour, and then I will throw my clothes over your feet, and I hope you will be a little warmer."
A sigh for all answer; and then the true heroine – for she was extremely beautiful, or rather had been, poor thing, for she was too wan and wasted to be beautiful now – lifted up her head, from which fell a profusion of the fairest hair in the world, and leaning her head upon her arm, watched in a sort of impatient patience the progress of the indefatigable needle-woman.
"One o'clock striking, and you hav'n't done yet, Lettice? how slowly you do get on."
"I can not work fast and neatly too, dear Myra. I can not get through as some do – I wish I could. But my hands are not so delicate and nimble as yours, such swelled clumsy things," she said, laughing a little, as she looked at them – swelled, indeed, and all mottled over with the cold! "I can not get over the ground nimbly and well at the same time. You are a fine race-horse, I am a poor little drudging pony – but I will make as much haste as I possibly can."
Myra once more uttered an impatient, fretful sigh, and sank down again, saying, "My feet are so dreadfully cold!"
"Take this bit of flannel then, and let me wrap them up."
"Nay, but you will want it."
"Oh, I have only five minutes more to stay, and I can wrap the carpet round my feet."
And she laid down her work and went to the bed, and wrapped her sister's delicate, but now icy feet, in the flannel; and then she sat down; and at last the task was finished. And oh, how glad she was to creep to that mattress, and to lay her aching limbs down upon it! Hard it might be, and wretched the pillows, and scanty the covering, but little felt she such inconveniences. She fell asleep almost immediately, while her sister still tossed and murmered. Presently Lettice, for Lettice it was, awakened a little, and said, "What is it, love? Poor, poor Myra! Oh, that you could but sleep as I do."
And then she drew her own little pillow from under her head, and put it under her sister's, and tried to make her more comfortable; and she partly succeeded, and at last the poor delicate suffering creature fell asleep, and then Lettice slumbered like a baby.
CHAPTER II
"Oh, blest with temper whose unclouded ray
Can make to-morrow cheerful as to-day:
····And can hear
Sighs for a sister with unwounded ear."
Early in the morning, before it was light, while the wintry twilight gleamed through the curtainless window, Lettice was up, dressing herself by the scanty gleam cast from the street lamps into the room, for she could not afford the extravagance of a candle.
She combed and did up her hair with modest neatness; put on her brown stuff only gown, and then going to the chest of drawers – opening one with great precaution, lest she should make a noise, and disturb Myra, who still slumbered – drew out a shawl, and began to fold it as if to put it on.
Alas! poor thing, as she opened it, she became first aware that the threadbare, time-worn fabric had given way in two places. Had it been in one, she might have contrived to conceal the injuries of age: but it was in two.
She turned it; she folded and unfolded: it would not do. The miserable shawl seemed to give way under her hands. It was already so excessively shabby that she was ashamed to go out in it; and it seemed as if it was ready to fall to pieces in sundry other places, this dingy, thin, brown, red, and green old shawl. Mend it would not: besides, she was pressed for time; so, with the appearance of considerable reluctance, she put her hand into the drawer, and took out another shawl.
This was a different affair. It was a warm, and not very old, plaid shawl, of various colors, well preserved and clean looking, and, this cold morning, so tempting.
Should she borrow it? Myra was still asleep, but she would be horridly cold when she got up, and she would want her shawl, perhaps; but then Lettice must go out, and must be decent, and there seemed no help for it.
But if she took the shawl, had she not better light the fire before she went out? Myra would be so chilly. But then, Myra seldom got up till half-past eight or nine, and it was now not seven.
An hour and a half's, perhaps two hour's, useless fire would never do. So after a little deliberation, Lettice contented herself with "laying it," as the housemaids say; that is, preparing the fire to be lighted with a match: and as she took out coal by coal to do this, she perceived with terror how very, very low the little store of fuel