As Alison spoke, she pushed open the narrow green door of the little
lodging-house, and there issued a weak, sweet sound of voices: "The
strain upraise of joy and praise." It was the same that had met their
ears at the school-door, but the want of body in the voices was fully
compensated by the heartfelt ring, as if here indeed was praise, not
practice.
"Aunt Ailie! O Aunt Ailie!" cried the child, as the room-door opened and
showed the little choir, consisting of herself, her aunt, and the small
maid of the house, "you should not have come, you were not to hear us
till Trinity Sunday."
Explanations were given, and Miss Curtis was welcomed, but Alison,
still too much moved for ordinary conversation, slipped into the
bedroom adjoining, followed by her sister's quick and anxious eye, and
half-uttered inquiry.
"I am afraid it is my fault," said Grace; "she has been telling me about
your accident."
"Poor Ailie," said Ermine, "she never will receive kindness without
having that unlucky story out! It is just one of the things that get so
cruelly exaggerated by consequences. It was one moment's petulance that
might have caused a fright and been forgotten ever after, but for those
chemicals. Ah! I see, she said nothing about them, because they were
Edward's. They were some parcels for his experiments, gun cotton and
the like, which were lying in the window till he had time to take them
upstairs. We had all been so long threatened with being blown up by his
experiments that we had grown callous and careless, and it served
us right!" she added, stroking the child's face as it looked at her,
earnest to glean fresh fragments of the terrible half-known tale of the
past. "Yes, Rosie, when you go and keep house for papa on the top of the
Oural Mountains, or wherever it may be, you are to remember that if Aunt
Ermine had not been in a foolish, inattentive mood, and had taken his
dangerous goods out of the way, she might have been trotting to church
now like other people. But poor Ailie has always helped herself to the
whole blame, and if every childish fit of temper were the root of such
qualities, what a world we should have here!"
"Ah! no wonder she is devoted to you."
"The child was not fifteen, had never known cross or care, but from that
moment she never was out of my room if it was possible to be in; and
when nurse after nurse was fairly worn out, because I could not help
being so distressing, there was always that poor child, always handy and
helpful, growing to be the chief dependence, and looking so piteously
imploring whatever was tried, that it really helped me to go through
with it. Poor Ailie," she added with an odd turn of playfulness, "I
always fancied those frowns of anxiety made her eyebrows grow together.
And ever since we came here, we know how she has worked away for her old
cinder and her small Rosebud, don't we?" she added, playfully squeezing
the child's cheeks up into a more budding look, hiding deeper and more
overcoming feelings by the sportive action. And as her sister came back,
she looked up and shook her head at her, saying,-"You gossiping Ailie, to go ripping up old grievances. I am going to ask
Miss Curtis not to let the story go any farther, now you have relieved
your mind of it."