One by Herself

Front matter

ONE BY HERSELF. HARRIET AND CRYSTAL. ONE BY HERSELF. BY MRS. C. L. BALFOUR. LONDON : SUNDAY SCHOOL UNION, 56, OLD BAILEY, E.C. NEW YORK : THOMAS NELSON AND SONS, 42, Bleecker Street. 1872. LONDON : tt. K. BORT AND CO., PRINTERS, WINR OFFICE COURT, FLEET STREET. E.C. CONTENTS. CHAP. PAGE I. "NOW, ABOUT THIS GlRL?" 1 ii. Crystal is not quite a Blind Guide . . . . 13 in. Seeking Home and Kindred . . . . .26 iv. One too Many 39 v. Purpose and Practice 52 vi. Crystal at Home 64 vn. In Trouble 78 vin. The Loss and Profit op Beading 89 ix. Out for an Airing 102 x. A Scheme and its Results 113 xi. A Discovery 126 xii. No longer One by Herself

Chapter I

"NOW, ABOUT THIS pIRL?" 'Tis hard to smile when one would weep, To speak when one would silent be ; To wake when one would wish to sleep, And wake to agony. Yet such the lot by thousands cast, AVho wander in this world of care, And bend beneath the bitter blast, » To shield them from despair. §Mrs. Jn. Hunter. ell, then, my good people, aU is settled up and done with. That's the receipt from the undertaker — right. There's the amount of your demand. Just sign the bill, Air. AVhat's-name, — Mr. Stokes — and I'm off by the next train. My young readers know that a very hurried manner is never respectful, and sometimes, indeed, amounts to insolence. The speaker of the above hasty words was a pompous, florid, loud-voiced man, who appeared to enjoy being in a hurry, as it gave him an increased importance, and an opportunity of directing or ordering others.

He looked at his watch as he spoke, and pointed with his disengaged hand at the inkstand on the table before which he was seated, and where a litter of papers showed that he had been examining and settling bills. A man and woman, the first perplexed and the other timid looking, were on the opposite side of the table, and were evidently bewildered by the rapid and abrupt manner of the speaker. "Yes," hesitated the man, "all is quite right, Mr. Dunn, sir. But " " I must be off for Taunton. I have business there ; and I go from thence to my home — Bristol — by the evening's express. Receipt that," pointing as he spoke to a bill. " Certainly, sir," said Mrs. Stokes, timidly, making a curtsey as she spoke ; " my master, sir, won't detain you, sir, only you see we wants to know about " "Eh, what now, Mrs. Stokes?" said Mr. Dunn, in his loudest and fastest tone.

" Only sir, if you please, you've said nothing about ; " here her voice so completely faltered that her husband came to her aid with a sudden effort, as if compelled. " Nothing about the young ? " "Oh, ah, I forget — well, now about this girl. Be quick ; didn't I understand last night that she could stay with you — stay here, until her mother, or rela tions, whatever they are, in Australia send for her ?" " Sir, Mr. Dunn," said Stokes, in a more resolute tone than he had yet used, " my wife did say as she could stay with us a bit, when we thought the people she belongs to lived in England. But we be poor folks ; we live by letting lodgings." " And there's not much got by that in a poor dull place like "Watchet (though so healthy)," chimed in the wife; "and so, sir, you see " " The long and the short of it is, you've slept on your proposal, and you do not think this morning as j'ou did last night."

" Well, sir," said Mrs. Stokes, raising the corner of her apron, and wiping away a real tear from her eyes, " Mrs. Lumley gave no end of trouble ; however, she's gone, and I'll say no ill of her. But yesterday, when the funeral was, and that poor dear young thing a-following, just one by herself — so desolate like, and nobody to take to her — and she so meek and sensible — I did say I'd have her awhile, as she's no relations." " How do you know that, Mrs. Stokes ? Where is she ? — call her. Be quick about it." "She's here, sir," said Mr. Stokes, reaching his hand towards the little bow window, and leading out from the shadow of the curtain a young girl dressed in black. As the slight trembling form came into the light of the still somewhat darkened room, and wras pre sented to Mr. Dunn, it must be confessed a more desolate-looking creature could scarcely be imagined.

Not that there was anything sordid or slatternly in the attire, or repulsive in the looks of the poor girl. Indeed there was painful care and neatness in the arrangement of her black frock ; but her face had a scared, lonely expression as she stood before Mr. Dunn, as if searching vainly for a friend. For a girl of thirteen she was tall — would have looked much older than her age, but that her features were small and delicate, and her soft dark hair fell in childish natural curls round a very pallid face. Perhaps the contrast of her black dress increased the whiteness of her throat and forehead, and made her look so deathly pale that even the abrupt Mr. Dunn, with an im patient wave of his hand, indicated his permission that she should sit down before him. " What's your name ? I've not much time for talking ; so, mind, answer promptly and in few words."

" Harriet ! " said a low, clear voice. "Harriet what?" "Harriet Lumley I have always been called, but I know that's not quite my own name." " Not quite your own ? You mean that Lumley, being your late aunt's name, you were called by it ?" " Yes, sir." "Well, what is your own name?" " My aunt never told me, sir." " Eh ! what then did she tell you about your self?" " Very little. I wanted often to ask her, but she did not like my speaking about — about — my mother." The girl's voice had faltered, and broke down quite on the dear word mother. But though there was a quiver of the white lips, the tears, as they gathered in her soft dark eyes, did not overflow them. " Ah, yes. Likely enough there was no love lost between Mrs. Lumley and her," said Mr. Dunn, half scornfully, adding, " both had tempers.

Girl, have you a temper ? If it's like your mother's or your aunt's, I give you a bit of advice — sharp, for I've no time to dwell on it. Get rid of it, if you mean to keep a place over jrour head." A flush of pain rather than anger passed quickly over the pale face, and lighted the depths of the eyes, as the girl said firmly, — " Sir, my aunt is dead. I remember only her kindness." " So-so. It's a pity you can't remember, or don't know more about matters. What do you mean to do?" " I wrote to Australia yesterday. I found the address of a Mrs. Felix Hartley, Castlemaine, Vic toria — that was where my aunt once wrote." " And it will be six or seven months before you can have an answer. Have you thought of that, pray ?" " Yes, sir. There are relatives of my mother's in London. Ought I — could I — go to them?"

Her voice was pathetic in its pleading tone, and an appeal ing look came into her eyes. " Exactly. Yes ; you both can and ought to go to them. Though I know nothing — nothing at all of them, in looking over Mrs. Lumley's papers, I have their address. And, to put things clearly, as far as time permits " — here he looked again at his watch — " I'll just explain about you." He addressed himself principally to Mr. and Mrs. Stokes, looking over Harriet's head as he spoke; and, spreading out one hand, he indicated on the palm with the fingers of the other, as if ticking off the incidents of his brief narrative. "Look here, it all lies in a nutshell about this girl. Mrs. Lumley, who was buried yesterday, had been for years a widow. This Harriet here was her husband's niece. When Mrs. Lumley married him many years ago, he had a sister a mere child, whom he brought up.

She was wilful ; Mrs. Lumley never liked her. Now this sister mortally offended them by marrying without their consent. It turned out badly, as foolish marriages always do. In less than two years the married pair quarrelled and parted. There was one child — this girl — and she was put out to nurse. The mother went abroad with a family. The father fell into ill health, and on his death-bed sent for Mr. Lumley, and asked him to take care of his child. Lumley was more forgiving than his wife. He made the promise. After the man, this girl's father, died, Mr. Lumley, with much persuasion — he told me so himself-— induced his wife to take the child. It was thought a very good thing for her then, for Mr. Lumley was rich. I suppose you were old enough then to remember his mansion ? " He looked at Harriet, who bent her head in assent, and added, " It's six or seven years ago.

Lumley failed after that, and the smash up of his property killed him. A poor hundred a-year life annuity was all his wife had and that she starved on, for she knew no more of management than — than that loose end," pointing as he spoke to a bit of paper which fluttered down at his touch from the table to the floor. " No, poor soul," said Mrs. Stokes, " that I can testify, and it's wonderful to me that child is as she is — wonderful — never sent to school, nor set to work, nor taught anj'thing." " She'll have to learn, and pretty quicklj' too," replied Mr. Dunn, severely, adding, as he glanced carelessly at the child, " If I did not know what a poor, handless, shiftless being Mrs. Lumley was, I'd have taken you home and made you of some use among my children, but as it is — no thank you — very sorrj', and so is my wife, but must decline — once for all."

He rubbed his hands and bowed his head as he spoke, with great self-complacency, and then resumed more placidly to Harriet — " Your mother may turn up all right. I think I heard she had married again some years ago, and done better. Mrs. Lumley once hinted to me she was well off, but that j'ou may or may not hear in a few months. The question is, what must you do in the meantime ? And, I say, go up to Mrs. Winchfield ; she's Mr. Lumley's sister." "And my mother's sister," interposed Harriet, eagerlj'. " True, and your mother's sister — some ten years older than your mother, I fancy. I'll tell j'ou what I'll do for you." Mr. Dunn now spoke very impor tantly. " I'll write to Mrs. Winchfield this very day, and post the letter at Taunton before I leave to-night. They'll get it to-morrow, and you had better go up the next day."

" That is Sunday, sir," said Harriet. " Oh, oh, Suuday is it ? well, and don't you like to travel that day ? Did Mrs. Lumley teach you that ? " Harriet made no other answer than " I would rather go up on Monday, sir." "Besides, she'd may be get an answer, sir," suErg-ested Mrs. Stokes. "She must not wait for that, People won't put themselves out of the way about unpleasant things like poor relations. When she gets there they must decide what they will do for her. Do you know the address ?" " Bedford Square — I've got the number in a book up-stairs." There was a rattle of wheels, and Mr. Dunn, not attending to her answer, gathered together the papers, deposited them in his travelling bag, and shouted at the top of his voice, " My top-coat " — ■" be quick " — "I'm off" — "my umbrella" — "there's the cab at last."

" My good woman, let me pass ; your stairs are so narrow." " Here, Mr. What's-a-name, take my bag. — Driver, open the door." He succeeded in making great confusion, if not great haste, as bustling people generally do. He was so absorbed that he took no further notice of the little white anxious face, that gazed after him as if he — hard, worldly, and pre occupied — were a link in the chain of life for her desolate hand to cling to. Harriet stood a minute alone in the passage as Mr. and Mrs. Stokes watched on their threshold the departure of the cab, and then began, without noticing her, talking to a neighbour or two, who sauntered up to have a gossip with them about their lodger, whose funeral they had seen the day before, and whose agent or lawyer had just left. Harriet shrank away from hearing any more talk about her aunt or herself.

It had been an aggravation of her grief, the constant inquiries and comments of the neighbours. With a benumbed feeling she turned and walked dreamily up-stairs, paused as if involun tarily at the door of a little sitting-room on the first landing, whose window was to the back of the house. She stood a moment or two on the threshold ; then entering, shut the door close after her, and looking sadly round, as if she missed some wonted object, she crossed the room and drew up the window -blind. Poor girl ! that blind had not been drawn up since, four daj's back, it kept the outer light from falling too brightly on the coffin of her protectress. Even now as the fitful sunshine of an autumn day streamed into the room, Harriet gazed forlornlj' at the spot where she had knelt weeping to take a last farewell of one who, whether kind or not, was all she had known in this world to claim kindred with.

The first feeling of gentle hearts when bereaved of friends is one of self-condemnation — in some cases amounting to remorse — that more of active love and patient ministering has not been rendered to those whom -,ve can serve no more. Everj' little omission, even every fancied error, starts up to pain the memory and weigh upon the spirits. " Oh, if she would but come again, I think I'd vex her so no more," is the penitent cry of affection. Oh, if the dear young inmates of happy homes could think in their perverse or impatient moments how soon change, removal, death, may take away their loved ones, and realise how con science will surely bring to mind every selfish failing and disobedient action that has interfered with duty and love, they would shrink from planting thorns to mar their own future peace.

Harriet had not anything specially to reproach herself with, yet now it seemed to her a sin that she had not loved her aunt more. It must be owned that the sweet buds of tenderness had been checked in Mrs. Lumley's abode. Love, like all other graces, will not flourish free unless cultivated. Weeds of evil grow fast of themselves, flowers of goodness must be carefully trained. Poor Harriet's aunt was a restless, unhappy woman, always purposing and never performing. Some one once told her the bitter truth that " her life was a murmur and a muddle." She meant to have put her niece to school, she meant to have written to that niece's mother, she meant to settle herself down in some economical home, and make the best of her income, but she did nothing. Time and means slipped away, and she went from one lodgino and place to another, getting poorer and poorer, until her indecision was somewhat suddenly ended bv death !

Her few effects — the mere wreck of former affluence had so diminished in her wanderings from one water ing-place to another, that there was scarcely enough left to pay arrears of rent and funeral, and to clothe her destitute niece in a suit of cheap mourning. In deed, if it had not been that Harriet herself had a little thrift-box unopened for j'ears, in which two pounds had accumulated, she would have now been as penniless as she was friendless. Still in that room, filled to the desolate girl with one mournful presence, she remem bered onlj' kindness ; all else, hard as it had often been to bear, was forgotten, and her affectionate heart swelled painfully with its load of grief. She would have actually lain down on the floor in her distress, but that she was roused by a singular sound. It was a hand passing, or rather feeling its waj', over the window towards the fastening.

Harriet knew that sound, and immediately she unfastened the long narrow French window, whicli opened on to a rough but wide balconj', from which, when the tide was in, there was a good view of the tawny waves of the Bristol Channel, and of the sunsets over the distant line of the lower Welsh mountains on the opposite coast. Harriet stepped out on this balcony, and the hand which had been touching the window instantly fell on her shoulder, and she was drawn into the embrace of a j'oung girl, somewhat older than herself, who while she held her close said, in the kindest accents, " My dear Harriet, how I have wanted to speak to you — to comfort j-ou ! " The loving caress and gentle sj'mpathy opened the floodgates of Harriet's tears. Her aching heart throbbed less pain fully as she laid her head on the young girl's shoulder and cried freely.

Not a word was said bj' either, as they moved together to a bench at the end of the balcony, where it was evident, from a workbasket lying, that Harriet's companion had been sitting. An observer might have noticed that, as the two moved towards the seat, it was Harriet's steps that guided to the seat where they rested side by side. It was a very fair young face that bent kindly over Harriet, until the soft braids of her pale golden hair mingled with the careless dark ringlets which her loving hand put aside from the tear-stained cheeks of the weeping girl. Indeed, her hands had a sort of ex pression in their touch — they were in a manner sub stitutes for sight. This young comforter of the desolate was blind ! She had known affliction and learned com passion. Her name was Crystal Summerhill.

Yet no one who first looked into that face, and those clear though sightless eyes, with the serene calm that rested on every feature, would think upon anything but peace. " Crystal," at last sobbed Harriet, " I want to tell you all about what I've got to do, and where I am to go." "Not just now, dear; not if it troubles you; wait awhile." " I've nobody but j'ou, Crystal." " Oh yes, you have, Harriet. Don't you remember, dear?" Then she bent her head closer, and softly whispered, " No one need be friendless. There is a Friend that sticketh closer than a brother."

Chapter II Prystal Is Not

quiTE A BLIND pUIDE. Never saw I mien or face In which more plainly I could trace Benignity, and homebred sense Ripening into innocence. § Wordsworth. he task of consolation which Crystal Summerhill, Harriet's blind young friend, attempted, did not at first seem to succeed. The recent interview with Mr. Dunn, his abrupt, heartless manner, following so immediately on the death of Harriet's aunt, had so depressed and frightened the poor girl, that all she now appeared able to do was to weep. She had begun to realise her loneliness ; and her early training had not fitted her to receive all at once the comfort that Crystal strove to impart, by tenderly speaking to the young mourner of Jesus the unchanging Friend. " Ah ; it is easy for you," sobbed Harriet ; " you with a home and friends, to talk like that."

" Easy? " said the blind girl, in a soft yet remonstrat ing tone of voice. " Easy, dear Harriet ? no, if I had not known some grief I could not venture to speak about your troubles, and the only way that I, or you, or any one can find real comfort and strength. You cannot think that I have had no affliction ? " She raised her clear blue sightless eyes as she spoke, and the tears gathered in them. At that instant Harriet looked up, and amid her own absorbing sorrows (and sorrow sometimes is apt to make people selfish) she was struck with the thought of how sad it was, that eyes never visited by a ray of light should yet be filled with tears, and with a warm embrace she faltered out, " Oh, I know dear, you have had, and must continue to have, a great affliction ; but I am so troubled I don't know quite what I saj', and you have been taught well, and belong to people.

I feel, all at once, as if I belonged to nobody." " Listen, dear Harriet. You do not quite know all about me. I am the eldest daughter in a large family. I have two brothers older than I am. I have three younger sisters and two little brothers, and mamma for the last three years has been in poor health. I was not born blind. Tip to the age of seven j'ears I could see the beautiful things God has made, and what to me was best of all, the dear faces of mj' parents. Mj' eyes grew dim gradually ; darkness came over, like, I remember, night used to come ; onljmine was a darker night — without a ray. Dear papa has not a large income. He was, and is, the manager of a lar^e firm in London ; and he needs all his earnings to brine us children up well. He spent what seems to me a little fortune in trying to save my sight, and all in vain.

I had, as you say, been well taught. I could read very early, and when I first had to give up that, I heard my brothers and little sisters take their lessons, and I learned them too. Then I was fond, oh how fond ! of music, and that I practised constantly; but, Harriet, I cannot tell j'ou what it was to have the slow gathering of darkness, daj' by day a little blacker, and I a little more helpless, until all was void, and I had to feel my way as I could, or to be led, a burden and a trial in a large household. I think I was very impatient." "No, Crystal, I cannot think that," said Harriet, drying her tears and listening attentively. " Yes, I was in my feelings. I murmured to myself. Of course, knowing how mamma had fretted, and what a grief my blindness was to poor papa, I did not dare to be so ungrateful to them as to show impatience, but I fear I made my health weak by inward fretting."

" Did you not then think of the heavenly Friend that you have just named to me ? " " Not as I should. I, like you, did not find it easj'. I said my prayers, of course. I heard the Scriptures read ; I went, and loved to go, to the House of God. All this was orderly and sociable and home-like ; something that I could share and enjoy with the rest ; but Jesus, the loving Saviour, as loving and caring specially for me — as mine to ' bear my sorrows,' and 'carry my grief — did not come into my heart as a clear living principle." " Why, no," interrupted Harriet ; " I suppose that is what no one exactly feels." " Oh, yes, that is what all real true Christians feel and know ; that is the meaning, Harriet, of the words ' Christ in you the hope of glory.' I was brought to know this when I was thirteen j'ears old, not two years ago.

I had been five j'ears without my ej'e sight. A friend of mamma's took me to the anniver sary of a blind school, and some of the pupils had composed essays, and some of them were read ; one in particular was so cheerful and grateful, dwelt not on the privation of blindness, but on the mercies that softened that privation ; how bad sights and scenes were hidden, and light shone inward ; how Christ revealed Himself to the believer amid nature's darkness ; that it seemed to me as if a heavy cloud had rolled away, a weight been withdrawn, and that I too was visited by the ' Daj'spring from on high.' " The blind girl paused, her sweet face was flushed and radiant, and Harriet looked at her with hushed, admiring gaze. Presently Crystal added softly, "That comfort has never left me since." " But you were ill before you came here, were you not?"

"Yes. They said at home I worked too hard. I wanted to be of use, and relieve mamma ; and so I did, to some extent ; when my sisters were all down with the fever I was able to attend to some things at home. Then at last I fell ill, and on my recovery I was sent here. Mrs. Stokes once lived servant with mamma, so it seemed best to put me here under Mrs. Stokes's care, amid these fresh sea-breezes, and they have done me good ; and so I have come to know you, dear Harriet." " Yes, but we must part ; I am to go to London on Monday. The man — the gentleman I mean — who came here about Aunt Lumley's affairs was so hasty, so rude, I thought, and he wanted me to go up on Sunday ! But I remembered what I heard you say about not doing our own work, or thinking even our own thoughts, on that holy day; and though I am sure I often do and think quite wrong on that and every day, still when I remembered aunt said to me the night before she died, ' I wish you, Harriet, were like Crystal, and I wish I was like her,' and what a sigh she heaved, I thought I would just remind Mr. Dunn that it was the Sabbath day he had named for me to travel on."

"And it was altered?" " Yes ; he jeered, I thought, about whether my aunt taught me that, as if he knew she had not been re ligious ; but I could have told him that since you came here there was a great change in poor aunt. At first, I know, she only wanted your company to hear you play and sing, but then you talked to her so sweetly, as she said, I know it did her good, for I know she praj'ed. And now to think I have lost her just as she was beginning to be kind and loving to me." A fresh burst of tears choked her voice. Taking no other notice than by a pressure of the hand, Crystal returned to Harriet's approaching journey. "I am sure, dear, you did very right to shrink from unnecessarily travelling on Sunday. And j'ou c see the gentleman — Mr. Dunn, do you call him? — yielded. I think when Christian people are not ashamed of their principles, and show a gentle spirit in naming them, they frequently overcome opposition.

At all events, whether hard or easy, Christians, even young and feeble ones, must strive to do their duty. You have begun well, Harriet, in this seemingly little matter, and you will not be left without a blessing. God will raise up friends for you. Who are these you are going to?" " An elder sister of my mother's ; a sister-in-law of my aunt who is just dead. Mrs. Lumley was not my own kin, but the widow of my mother's brother." "And you have no " Crystal paused, for some delicate instinct told her that Harriet, who had always shrunk from naming her mother, might not know indeed whether she was living or not, and therefore she added, hesitatingly, " no other relative than this aunt you are going to ? " "Not in England." "Well, a mother's own sister is a near relation. You may be happier with her than you have ever been.

Do j'ou know much of her ?" " I have never, to my knowledge, seen her. Aunt Lumley was not friendljwith her husband's familj'. But they will have Mr. Dunn's letter to-morrow, and I make no doubt they will write by return." " Miss Crystal, Miss Crystal, you'll catch cold sitting out here. I've been just having a word with a neio-h bour, and I declare when I came in the fire was out and I came to look for you; there you are a-sitting unconcerned, as if nobody cared any more for j'our health than they seems to do about J'oung missy here, poor thing." " I shall do very well ; I'm quite strong now, Nurse Stokes. I like to feel the air and sunshine. But we will go in, and Harriet may stay with me this evening. If she has the letter, and leaves on Monday, then we must make the best of the time we are together."