Read Ebook: Mousey by Stooke Eleanora H

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Ebook has 780 lines and 29022 words, and 16 pages

lk in the park, as he had done on that first Sunday she had spent at Haughton. It pleased the little girl to mark the difference in the foliage of the trees from one week to another; and she watched the spring give place to summer with keen delight.

"How warm it is, Cousin Robert," she remarked one beautiful Sunday in May as they strolled along the smooth, winding paths. "It will soon be summer now."

"Aye," he answered, "that it will."

"See, the flower-beds have been freshly planted," the little girl continued. "There are some geraniums, and there are some heliotropes, and a lot of plants I don't know."

"Stocks," Mr. Harding informed her, pausing to look at the seedlings. "I'm very fond of stocks--I remember we always had them in our garden at home."

"At home?" Mousey questioned wonderingly.

"I mean my boyhood's home--where I lived when my parents were alive."

"It wasn't in Haughton, I suppose?"

"No. I was born and bred in a small village. I never had sister or brother, so when my parents died I came to Haughton to try to make a fortune--and succeeded."

The old man's eyes glistened proudly for a moment then softened as he continued--

"My mother used to be fond of stocks. She was a good woman, was my mother."

"Did you feel very lonely after she died?" Mousey asked gently.

"I dare say I did," he responded; "but she died so long ago that I really forget."

The little girl looked at him curiously, wondering if she lived to be an old woman whether she would forget her anguish of grief at her mother's death. She could not think it possible; but the bare thought hurt her, and she sighed unconsciously.

"Well, child, what now?" Mr. Harding asked. "I should have thought you would have felt as blithe as a bird on a lovely morning like this."

Mousey smiled, but made no answer. She walked sedately and silently by his side, deep in thought.

"I lent it to him," she replied in some surprise; "but how did you know he had it, Cousin Robert?"

"I caught him reading it yesterday, but could get no explanation from him. So you lent it to him, eh?"

"Yes. He has no Bible of his own, and I have mother's, so I let him have mine. I couldn't give it to him, because, you see, mother gave it to me."

"But how did he come to borrow it? The idea of John Monday wanting to read the Bible!"

Mousey explained the matter, whilst Mr. Harding listened with a scornful expression on his countenance, which gave place to astonishment when the little girl informed him how John was afraid of being laughed at and considered a hypocrite.

"You don't think him a hypocrite, do you?" she inquired anxiously. "I'm sure he's a nice boy. See how kind he is helping me with my lessons of an evening; and he's very good-natured. He'll fetch coal for Maria, and clean the knives, and--"

"So he ought!" Mr. Harding interrupted briskly. "That's what I keep him for, to make him generally useful about the place. You don't think I took him out of the workhouse for any other reason, I suppose?"

"I thought you took him because you wanted to be kind to him," Mousey responded simply, "just as you took me, Cousin Robert, because he had no mother or father, or anyone to care for him."

"Humph!" said Mr. Harding, frowning, "then you thought wrong! I have no interest in John Monday beyond getting the work out of him to pay me for his bed and board. He suits me well enough. As to you--"

He paused abruptly, his keen eyes softening as they rested on the child's face.

"As for you," he continued, "I offered you a home because I always respected your mother, and you are like her in appearance."

"Do you really think so?" Mousey asked joyfully. "I want so much to be like her, but I am afraid I shall never, never be so good as she was."

"You are like her in appearance," Mr. Harding repeated, "or I should say, like what she was at your age. I knew her as a child when she used to be very fond of her Cousin Robert. Did she ever mention me to you?"

"Yes, sometimes," the little girl responded; "once she told me you were very rich."

A shade of disappointment crossed the old man's countenance, although it was usually a pleasure to him to know he was considered wealthy. He remarked that it was quite time for them to turn homewards, so they left the park for the streets, meeting many people coming from the different places of worship.

Mousey smiled brightly as she caught sight of Mrs. Downing and Miss Longley on the opposite side of the road. The latter saw Mr. Harding and his little cousin, and drew her sister's attention to them. Mr. Harding lifted his hat to the ladies in response to their polite salutations, and hurried Mousey on. Next they met Nellie Thomas, walking with her father, her mother and two brothers following behind. Mr. Harding and Mr. Thomas nodded to each other, and said "Good-morning," whilst Nellie smiled at her school-fellow, and then glanced at the old man in his threadbare coat and rusty hat in what Mousey considered a scornful manner. An indignant flush rose to Mousey's face, and tears of vexation rushed to her eyes. She was conscious that Nellie and her relations looked well-dressed, well-to-do people, and that the contrast between them and Cousin Robert and herself was very great. She wished they had not met, for she was certain Nellie would make fun of Mr. Harding next day at school. Mousey had told the girls again and again how dependent she was upon her cousin, but they had never seemed in the least impressed by his kindness in giving her a home; on the contrary, they had appeared to think he did no more than he ought, and never scrupled to call him mean and miserly. The worst of it was, she could not contradict them, for it had not taken her long to discover the great failing in his character.

The day that had commenced with brilliant sunshine ended in storm. When evening came; it rained so heavily that it was out of the question for Maria and Mousey to go to church. Both were disappointed, but the latter especially so, for she had grown to look forward to the Sunday evening service at the mission chapel as a great pleasure, which she was regretful to miss. She stood at the parlour window, gazing at the rain with a doleful countenance, whilst Mr. Harding sat at his secretaire writing, and John Monday, with his hands in his pockets, lolled back in his chair, and grumbled at the weather under his breath.

"What do you think about reading that chapter of the Bible you were speaking of the other night, child?" Mr. Harding asked abruptly, as he shut up the front of his secretaire.

"Oh!" Mousey cried in surprise, whilst John Monday sat upright on his chair and stared at his master in wide-eyed astonishment. "Do you really mean it, Cousin Robert?"

"Certainly!"

"Please let me have my Bible, John," said the little girl, turning to John Monday.

The boy flushed, glanced deprecatingly at his master, and drawing the sacred volume from the breast-pocket of his coat, handed it to her in silence.

Mousey found the sixth chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel; and began to read. The old man watched her earnestly, whilst he listened to words which he had certainly never heard since his boyhood's days.

"'Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:'"

"'But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:'"

"'For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.'"

Mr. Harding moved uneasily. He heard nothing of the remainder of the chapter, and he started when Mousey asked--

"Shall I read some more, Cousin Robert?"

"No, that will do for to-night," he answered.

She was about to return her Bible to John Monday when the old man stopped her. Going to his secretaire, he unlocked one of the under drawers and drew therefrom a small leather-covered volume, the pages yellow with age, which he placed in John Monday's hands.

"You can keep it, if you like," he said; "I've had it lying there for many a long year, and you may as well have it."

"Thank you--thank you--sir!" the boy said, stammering with astonishment.

"You've no reason to thank me," Mr. Harding responded curtly. "The Bible was mine when I was a boy, but I've no use for it nowadays."

The words were ungracious enough to chill anyone; but John Monday and Mousey exchanged pleased glances notwithstanding. The former was glad to possess a Bible of his own, and the latter was delighted to have hers back again.

MOUSEY GOES OUT TO TEA

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