Little Saint Elizabeth and Other Stories | Page 6

have a fortune, but I cannot permit you to throw it away. You are a child, and do not understand--"
[Illustration: "UNCLE BERTRAND," SAID THE CHILD, CLASPING HER HANDS.]
"But," cried Elizabeth, trembling with agitation, "they are so poor when one does not help them: their vineyards are so little, and if the year is bad they must starve. Aunt Clotilde gave to them every year--even in the good years. She said they must be cared for like children."
"That was your Aunt Clotilde's charity," replied her uncle. "Sometimes she was not so wise as she was devout. I must know more of this. I have no time at present, I am going out of town. In a few days I will reflect upon it. Tell your maid to give that hideous garment away. Go out to drive--amuse yourself--you are too pale."
Elizabeth looked at his handsome, careless face in utter helplessness. This was a matter of life and death to her; to him it meant nothing.
"But it is winter," she panted, breathlessly; "there is snow. Soon it will be Christmas, and they will have nothing--no candles for the church, no little manger for the holy child, nothing for the poorest ones. And the children--"
"It shall be thought of later," said Uncle Bertrand. "I am too busy now. Be reasonable, my child, and run away. You detain me."
He left her with a slight impatient shrug of his shoulders and the slight amused smile on his lips. She heard him speak to his friend.
"She was brought up by one who had renounced the world," he said, "and she has already renounced it herself--pauvre petite enfant! At eleven years she wishes to devote her fortune to the poor and herself to the Church."
Elizabeth sank back into the shadow of the _porti��res_. Great burning tears filled her eyes and slipped down her cheeks, falling upon her breast.
"He does not care," she said; "he does not know. And I do no one good--no one." And she covered her face with her hands and stood sobbing all alone.
When she returned to her room she was so pale that her maid looked at her anxiously, and spoke of it afterwards to the other servants. They were all fond of Mademoiselle Elizabeth. She was always kind and gentle to everybody.
Nearly all the day she sat, poor little saint! by her window looking out at the passers-by in the snowy street. But she scarcely saw the people at all, her thoughts were far away, in the little village where she had always spent her Christmas before. Her Aunt Clotilde had allowed her at such times to do so much. There had not been a house she had not carried some gift to; not a child who had been forgotten. And the church on Christmas morning had been so beautiful with flowers from the hot-houses of the _chateau_. It was for the church, indeed, that the conservatories were chiefly kept up. Mademoiselle de Rochemont would scarcely have permitted herself such luxuries.
But there would not be flowers this year, the _chateau_ was closed; there were no longer gardeners at work, the church would be bare and cold, the people would have no gifts, there would be no pleasure in the little peasants' faces. Little Saint Elizabeth wrung her slight hands together in her lap.
"Oh," she cried, "what can I do? And then there is the poor here--so many. And I do nothing. The Saints will be angry; they will not intercede for me. I shall be lost!"
It was not alone the poor she had left in her village who were a grief to her. As she drove through the streets she saw now and then haggard faces; and when she had questioned a servant who had one day come to her to ask for charity for a poor child at the door, she had found that in parts of this great, bright city which she had not seen, there was said to be cruel want and suffering, as in all great cities.
"And it is so cold now," she thought, "with the snow on the ground."
The lamps in the street were just beginning to be lighted when her Uncle Bertrand returned. It appeared that he had brought back with him the 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