Mr. Pats Little Girl | Page 7

another of his favorites, and he knew she was having her battle with misfortune, meeting it as bravely as a young woman could. Thomas Gilpin might so easily have smoothed the way for her. The spinet was an interesting heirloom, no doubt, but would not help Celia solve the problem of bread and butter.
The shop of the cabinet-maker was just off Main Street, at the foot of the hill. To its original two rooms he had added two more, and here he lived with no companions but a striped cat and a curly dog, who endured each other and shared the affection of their master.
Morgan's housekeeping was not burdensome. Certain of his neighbors always remembered him on baking day, and his tastes were simple. His shop opened immediately on the street; back of it was his living room and the small garden where he cultivated the gayest blooms. The living room had an open fireplace, for it was one of the cabinet-maker's pleasures to sit in the firelight when the work of the day was over, and a small oil stove sufficed for his cooking. On one side of the chimney was a high-backed settle, and above it a book shelf. Like most Scotch boys, he had had a fair education, and possessed a genuine reverence for books and a love of reading. In the opposite corner was an ancient mahogany desk where he kept his accounts, and near by in the window a shelf always full of plants in the winter. A cupboard of his own manufacture, a table, a lamp, and an arm-chair completed the furniture of the room. The walls he had painted a dull red, and over the fireplace in fanciful letters had traced this motto: "Good in everything."
To this cheerful belief Morgan held firmly, although there were times like this morning, when coming out of the sunlight and feeling a little weary, he noticed that the walls were growing dingy and the motto dim, and sighed to think how hard it was to see the good in some things.
He placed a paper in the old secretary and was turning toward the shop when he stopped short in amazement, for in the doorway stood Rosalind, her face full of eagerness. Behind her was Miss Herbert, whom Morgan entirely overlooked in his pleasure at seeing Mr. Pat's little girl again.
He shook hands warmly and offered the arm-chair, but Rosalind had no thought of sitting down. As she gazed with bright-eyed interest around the room, her glance fell on the motto, and she pointed to it and then to herself.
The cabinet-maker was puzzled. "Is it your motto?" he asked.
She nodded brightly.
Morgan turned to the shelf, took down a large volume of Shakespeare's plays, and laying it on the table began to turn the pages rapidly. Rosalind looked over his arm. He ran his finger down a leaf presently and pointed to the line. "There," he said.
Rosalind turned back a page and pointed to her own name, and then they both laughed as if it were a great coincidence.
A sharp tap on his arm made Miss Herbert's presence known to Morgan. Miss Herbert was not of Friendship. She knew the value of time if the cabinet-maker did not, and had no idea of waiting while he discussed Shakespeare in pantomime with Rosalind.
Miss Herbert with the aid of the tablet, and Morgan with many queer gestures to help out his faltering tongue, so long without the guide of hearing, contrived to despatch the business relating to a claw-footed sofa. When it was finished, Rosalind was missing, and was discovered in the little garden, making friends with the black poodle, while the striped cat looked on from the fence.
It was with evident reluctance she accompanied Miss Herbert to the carriage. Before she left she took the tablet and wrote, "I am going to learn to talk on my fingers."
"Good," the cabinet-maker answered, and he followed them to the street, smiling and nodding. "Come again," he called as they drove away.
When he returned to the shop, the world seemed brighter, the mist of doubt had lifted.
"The rough places can't last always," he told himself as he sandpapered the claw toes of the sofa. "We are certain to come to a turn in the lane after a while. There's good in everything, somewhere."
Perhaps the coming of Mr. Pat's little girl was a good omen. To him at least it was a most interesting event, nor was he the only person in Friendship who found it so.
CHAPTER FOURTH.
AN UNQUIET MORNING.
"You amaze me, ladies."
Farther up the street on the other side, but within sight of the Whittredges', was Mrs. Graham's Boarding and Day School for Young Ladies.
The broad, one story and a half mansion, with rooms enough for a small hotel, was still known as