Mrs. Overtheways Remembrances

Overtheway's Remembrances, by
Juliana Horatia Ewing

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Title: Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances
Author: Juliana Horatia Ewing
Release Date: February 16, 2006 [EBook #17772]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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OVERTHEWAY'S REMEMBRANCES ***

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MRS. OVERTHEWAY'S REMEMBRANCES.
BY JULIANA HORATIA EWING.

LONDON: SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN
KNOWLEDGE, NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, W.C. NEW
YORK: E. & J.B. YOUNG & CO.

[Published under the direction of the General Literature Committee.]

TO MY HUSBAND A.E. IN REMEMBRANCE OF 1866 AND 1867
J.H.E.

CONTENTS.
IDA
MRS. MOSS
THE SNORING GHOST
REKA DOM
KERGUELEN'S LAND

IDA.
... "Thou shall not lack The flower that's like thy face, pale Primrose."
Cymbeline.
The little old lady lived over the way, through a green gate that shut
with a click, and up three white steps. Every morning at eight o'clock
the church bell chimed for Morning Prayer--chim! chime! chim!
chime!--and every morning at eight o'clock the little old lady came
down the white steps, and opened the gate with a click, and went where

the bells were calling.
About this time also little Ida would kneel on a chair at her nursery
window in the opposite house to watch the old lady come out and go.
The old lady was one of those people who look always the same. Every
morning her cheeks looked like faded rose-leaves, and her white hair
like a snow-wreath in a garden laughing at the last tea-rose. Every
morning she wore the same black satin bonnet, and the same white
shawl; had delicate gloves on the smallest of hands, and gathered her
skirt daintily up from the smallest of feet. Every morning she carried a
clean pocket-handkerchief, and a fresh rose in the same hand with her
Prayer-book; and as the Prayer-book, being bound up with the Bible,
was very thick, she seemed to have some difficulty in so doing. Every
morning, whatever the weather might be, she stood outside the green
gate, and looked up at the sky to see if this were clear, and down at the
ground to see if that were dry; and so went where the bells were calling.
Ida knew the little old lady quite well by sight, but she did not know
her name. Perhaps Ida's great-uncle knew it; but he was a grave,
unsociable man, who saw very little of his neighbours, so perhaps he
did not; and Ida stood too much in awe of him to trouble him with idle
questions. She had once asked Nurse, but Nurse did not know; so the
quiet orphan child asked no more. She made up a name for the little old
lady herself, however, after the manner of Mr. John Bunyan, and called
her Mrs. Overtheway; and morning after morning, though the
bread-and-milk breakfast smoked upon the table, she would linger at
the window, beseeching--
"One minute more, dear Nurse! Please let me wait till Mrs. Overtheway
has gone to church."
And when the little old lady had come out and gone, Ida would creep
from her perch, and begin her breakfast. Then, if the chimes went on
till half the basinful was eaten, little Ida would nod her head
contentedly, and whisper--
"Mrs. Overtheway was in time."

Little Ida's history was a sad one. Her troubles began when she was but
a year old, with the greatest of earthly losses--for then her mother died,
leaving a sailor husband and their infant child. The sea-captain could
face danger, but not an empty home; so he went back to the winds and
the waves, leaving his little daughter with relations. Six long years had
he been away, and Ida had had many homes, and yet, somehow, no
home, when one day the postman brought her a large letter, with her
own name written upon it in a large hand. This was no old envelope
sealed up again--no make-believe epistle to be put into the post through
the nursery door: it was a real letter, with a real seal, real stamps, and a
great many post-marks; and when Ida opened it there were two sheets
written by the Captain's very own hand, in round fat characters, easy to
read, with a sketch of the Captain's very own ship at the top, and--most
welcome above all!--the news that the Captain's very own self was
coming home.
"I shall have a papa all to myself very soon,