The Christmas Child | Page 2

the vegetables. The light home-work, too, was Rhoda's; but the
rough, laborious scrubbing and washing were done by her aunt and the
only little maid they kept.
When Rhoda was about eighteen, another niece of Priscilla Parry's died
in London, leaving one little girl quite unprovided for. All the other
relatives decided that, as Priscilla was a single woman doing well in the
world, it was clearly her duty to adopt the child, and without waiting
for her consent, or her refusal, which was the more likely, they packed

off little Joan to her great-aunt's farm.
The child was under six years of age, puny and pale and sickly, having
lived most of her time in a close back room, up three pairs of stairs, in a
London house of business, where her mother had been housekeeper.
Her only playfellow had been a cat, and the prospect from her window
had been the walls of the houses on the opposite side of a narrow court,
and a mere streak of sky above them.
Miss Priscilla did not at all like to have another child thrown upon her.
Her plans had been laid long ago, and to adopt Joan would quite upset
them. She intended to make Rhoda independent, that she might have no
temptation to marry for a home when her aunt died. Getting married, to
Aunt Priscilla, usually meant the greatest misfortune that could befall a
woman; and to guard Rhoda from it was the fixed purpose of her life.
Like Queen Elizabeth, she could not forgive anyone belonging to her,
man or woman, who was foolish enough to marry. Her old man-servant,
Nathan, had escaped this error, like herself; and both of them had lived
free and single and wise, as Miss Priscilla Parry often said, even to
their old age. Her cherished day-dream was that Rhoda would follow
their example, and dwell with her in tranquillity and peace, until she
herself closed her eyes, and fell asleep, in the course of twenty years or
more, leaving Rhoda a staid, discreet, and unmarried woman of middle
age.
Here was another child come, a girl too; and if she grew fond of Joan
she would have the same misfortune to dread for her, and feel the same
desire to save her from it. But she was a proud woman, proud of her
character and name, and she could not turn the desolate child away. She
was in some measure religious too, and if it was God's will, she felt she
must take to Joan. But Aunt Priscilla took to Joan as a cross.
To Rhoda, however, Joan was altogether welcome. She had never had a
playfellow, and Joan was so small and light and delicate that she
seemed almost like a plaything, a living doll. The two were never apart.
They rambled together about the breezy mountains, catching glimpses
of the blue sea here and there; and they ran down the rough, rocky lane

to the village on the shore, two miles away; and they kept house on
market-days, as if it had been a merry sort of game, when Aunt Priscilla
was away. It was a wonderful change to Joan from her close, dark little
room in London.
The farm-house had been built at different times, and though it
contained no more than four bedrooms, there were three staircases in it,
two of them leading up to single rooms. One of these was set apart for
Joan and Rhoda, where the window looked out upon the small garden
and the green mountain slopes, with the sea and the sky around and
above them.
[Illustration: THE TWO WERE NEVER APART]
The farm kitchen, where they chiefly lived, opened into the fold, round
which were built the stables and the cow-sheds, with the barn filling up
one side of it, between them and the house. In the middle lay a heap of
rotting straw, where the pigs burrowed and the fowls scratched
diligently for hidden food; and all round it ran a causeway of large
round stones, on which the hoofs of the horses rang, and even the soft,
slow tread of the cows could be heard. There was a small blacksmith's
forge at the end of the fold, for old Parry had been something of a smith
himself, and Miss Priscilla could quite well overlook the shoeing of her
horses and the mending of her cart-wheels.
The house-door was always open, and as there was not a morsel of
carpet in the place, not even in the parlour, no one was afraid of dirty
footsteps. There seemed to be something of busy and cheerful work
going on every day, though the place was so far removed from any
town or village.
CHAPTER II
JOAN'S SEARCH
Miss Priscilla Parry's head servant, old