Beulah - Page 28/348

Picking up the coin which lay glittering on the sidewalk, she threw

it forcibly against the door, and, as it rebounded into the street,

took the carriage tongue, and slowly retraced her steps. It was not

surprising that passers-by gazed curiously at the stony face, with

its large eyes, brimful of burning hate, as the injured orphan

walked mechanically on, unconscious that her lips were crushed till

purple drops oozed over them. The setting sun flashed his ruddy

beams caressingly over her brow, and whispering winds lifted

tenderly the clustering folds of jetty hair; but nature's pure-

hearted darling had stood over the noxious tarn, whence the

poisonous breath of a corrupt humanity rolled upward, and the once

sinless child inhaled the vapor until her soul was a great boiling

Marah. Ah, truly "There are swift hours in life--strong, rushing hours--That do the

work of tempests in their might!"

Peaceful valleys, green and flowery, sleeping in loveliness, have

been unheaved, and piled in somber, jagged masses, against the sky,

by the fingering of an earthquake; and gentle, loving, trusting

hearts, over whose altars brooded the white-winged messengers of

God's peace, have been as suddenly transformed by a manifestation of

selfishness and injustice, into gloomy haunts of misanthropy. Had

Mrs. Grayson been arraigned for cruelty, or hard-heartedness, before

a tribunal of her equals (i. e., fashionable friends), the charge

would have been scornfully repelled, and unanimous would have been

her acquittal. "Hard-hearted! oh, no! she was only prudent and

wise." Who could expect her to suffer her pampered, inert darling to

meet and acknowledge as an equal the far less daintily fed and

elegantly clad sister, whom God called to labor for her frugal

meals? Ah, this fine-ladyism, this ignoring of labor, to which, in

accordance with the divine decree, all should be subjected: this

false-effeminacy, and miserable affectation of refinement, which

characterizes the age, is the unyielding lock on the wheels of

social reform and advancement.

Beulah took her charge home, and when dusk came on rocked him to

sleep, and snugly folded the covering of his crib over the little

throbbing heart, whose hours of trial were yet veiled by the

impenetrable curtain of futurity. Mrs. Martin and her elder children

had gone to a concert, and, of course, the nurse was to remain with

Johnny until his mother's return. Standing beside the crib, and

gazing down at the rosy cheeks and curling locks, nestled against

the pillow, Beulah's thoughts winged along the tear-stained past, to

the hour when Lilly had been placed in her arms, by emaciated hands

stiffening in death. For six years she had held, and hushed, and

caressed her dying father's last charge, and now strange, ruthless

fingers had torn the clinging heart-strings from the idol. There

were no sobs, nor groans, to voice the anguish of the desolate

orphan. The glittering eyes were tearless, but the brow was darkly

furrowed, the ashy lips writhed, and the folded hands were purple

from compression. Turning from the crib, she threw up the sash, and

seated herself on the window-sill. Below lay the city, with its

countless lamps gleaming in every direction, and stretching away on

the principal streets, like long processions; in the distance the

dark waters of the river, over which steamboat lights flashed now

and then like ignesfatui; and above her arched the dome of sky, with

its fiery fretwork. Never before had she looked up at the starry

groups without an emotion of exulting joy, of awful adoration. To

her worshiping gaze they had seemed glimpses of the spirit's home;

nay, loving eyes shining down upon her thorny pathway. But now, the

twinkling rays fell unheeded, impotent to pierce the sable clouds of

grief. She sat looking out into the night, with strained eyes that

seemed fastened upon a corpse. An hour passed thus, and, as the

clang of the town clock died away the shrill voice of the watchman

rang through the air: "Nine o'clock; and all's well!"