Little Saint Elizabeth and Other Stories | Page 7

gentleman with the kind face. They were to dine together, and
Uncle Bertrand desired that Mademoiselle Elizabeth should join them.
Evidently the journey out of town had been delayed for a day at least.
There came also another message: Monsieur de Rochemont wished
Mademoiselle to send to him by her maid a certain box of antique
ornaments which had been given to her by her Aunt Clotilde. Elizabeth
had known less of the value of these jewels than of their beauty. She

knew they were beautiful, and that they had belonged to her Aunt
Clotilde in the gay days of her triumphs as a beauty and a brilliant and
adored young woman, but it seemed that they were also very curious,
and Monsieur de Rochemont wished his friend to see them. When
Elizabeth went downstairs she found them examining them together.
"They must be put somewhere for safe keeping," Uncle Bertrand was
saying. "It should have been done before. I will attend to it."
The gentleman with the kind eyes looked at Elizabeth with an
interested expression as she came into the room. Her slender little
figure in its black velvet dress, her delicate little face with its large soft
sad eyes, the gentle gravity of her manner made her seem quite unlike
other children.
He did not seem simply to find her amusing, as her Uncle Bertrand did.
She was always conscious that behind Uncle Bertrand's most serious
expression there was lurking a faint smile as he watched her, but this
visitor looked at her in a different way. He was a doctor, she discovered.
Dr. Norris, her uncle called him, and Elizabeth wondered if perhaps his
profession had not made him quick of sight and kind.
She felt that it must be so when she heard him talk at dinner. She found
that he did a great deal of work among the very poor---that he had a
hospital, where he received little children who were ill--who had
perhaps met with accidents, and could not be taken care of in their
wretched homes. He spoke most frequently of terrible quarters, which
he called Five Points; the greatest poverty and suffering was there. And
he spoke of it with such eloquent sympathy, that even Uncle Bertrand
began to listen with interest.
"Come," he said, "you are a rich, idle fellow; De Rochemont, and we
want rich, idle fellows to come and look into all this and do something
for us. You must let me take you with me some day."
"It would disturb me too much, my good Norris," said Uncle Bertrand,
with a slight shudder. "I should not enjoy my dinner after it."
"Then go without your dinner," said Dr. Norris. "These people do. You
have too many dinners. Give up one."
Uncle Bertrand shrugged his shoulders and smiled.
"It is Elizabeth who fasts," he said. "Myself, I prefer to dine. And yet,
some day, I may have the fancy to visit this place with you."
Elizabeth could scarcely have been said to dine this evening. She could

not eat. She sat with her large, sad eyes fixed upon Dr. Norris' face as
he talked. Every word he uttered sank deep into her heart The want and
suffering of which he spoke were more terrible than anything she had
ever heard of--it had been nothing like this in the village. Oh! no, no.
As she thought of it there was such a look in her dark eyes as almost
startled Dr. Norris several times when he glanced at her, but as he did
not know the particulars of her life with her aunt and the strange
training she had had, he could not possibly have guessed what was
going on in her mind, and how much effect his stories were having.
The beautiful little face touched him very much, and the pretty French
accent with which the child spoke seemed very musical to him, and
added a great charm to the gentle, serious answers she made to the
remarks he addressed to her. He could not help seeing that something
had made little Mademoiselle Elizabeth a pathetic and singular little
creature, and he continually wondered what it was.
"Do you think she is a happy child?" he asked Monsieur de Rochemont
when they were alone together over their cigars and wine.
"Happy?" said Uncle Bertrand, with his light smile. "She has been
taught, my friend, that to be happy upon earth is a crime. That was my
good sister's creed. One must devote one's self, not to happiness, but
entirely to good works. I think I have told you that she, this little one,
desires to give all her fortune to the poor. Having heard you this
evening, she will wish to bestow it upon your Five Points."
When, having retired