The English Orphans | Page 5

the persons whom he was seeking had left the day before for one of the inland towns, though which one he could not ascertain.
"I knew 'twould be so," said Ida rather fretfully, "father might have gone that rainy day as well as not. Now we shall never see nor hear from them again, and George will be so disappointed." But George's disappointment was soon forgotten in the pleasures and excitements of school, and if occasionally thoughts of Mary Howard came over him, they were generally dispelled by the lively sallies of his sprightly little cousin, who often declared that "she should be dreadfully jealous of George's travelling companion, were it not that he was a great admirer of beauty and that Mary was terribly ugly."

CHAPTER II.
CHICOPEE.
It was the afternoon for the regular meeting of the Ladies Sewing Society in the little village of Chicopee, and at the usual hour groups of ladies were seen wending their way towards the stately mansion of Mrs. Campbell, the wealthiest and proudest lady in town.
Many, who for months had absented themselves from the society, came this afternoon with the expectation of gaining a look at the costly marble and rosewood furniture with which Mrs. Campbell's parlors were said to be adorned. But they were disappointed, for Mrs. Campbell had no idea of turning a sewing society into her richly furnished drawing-rooms. The spacious sitting-room, the music-room adjoining, and the wide cool hall beyond, were thrown open to all, and by three o'clock they were nearly filled.
At first there was almost perfect silence, broken only by a whisper or under tone, but gradually the restraint wore way, and the woman near the door, who had come "because she was a mind to, but didn't expect to be noticed any way," and who, every time she was addressed, gave a nervous hitch backward with her chair, had finally hitched herself into the hall, where with unbending back and pursed up lips she sat, highly indignant at the ill-concealed mirth of the young girls, who on the stairs were watching her retrograde movements. The hum of voices increased, until at last there was a great deal more talking than working. The Unitarian minister's bride, Lilly Martin's stepmother, the new clerk at Drury's, Dr. Lay's wife's new hat and its probable cost, and the city boarders at the hotel, were all duly discussed, and then for a time there was again silence while Mrs. Johnson, president of the society, told of the extreme destitution in which she had that morning found a poor English family, who had moved into the village two or three years before.
They had managed to earn a comfortable living until the husband and father suddenly died, since which time the wife's health had been very rapidly failing, until now she was no longer able to work, but was wholly dependent for subsistence upon the exertions of her oldest child Frank, and the charity of the villagers, who sometimes supplied her with far more than was necessary, and again thoughtlessly neglected her for many days. Her chief dependence, too, had now failed her, for the day before the sewing society, Frank had been taken seriously ill with what threatened to be scarlet fever.
"Dear me," said the elegant Mrs. Campbell, smoothing the folds of her rich India muslin--"dear me, I did not know that we had such poverty among us. What will they do?"
"They'll have to go to the poor-house, won't they?"
"To the poor-house!" repeated Mrs. Lincoln, who spent her winters in Boston, and whose summer residence was in the neighborhood of the pauper's home, "pray don't send any more low, vicious children to the poor-house. My Jenny has a perfect passion for them, and it is with difficulty I can keep her away."
"They are English, I believe," continued Mrs. Campbell. "I do wonder why so many of those horridly miserable creatures will come to this country."
"Forgets, mebby, that she's English," muttered the woman at the door; and Mrs. Johnson added, "It would draw tears from your eyes, to see that little pale-faced Mary trying to wait upon her mother and brother, and carrying that sickly baby in her arms so that it may not disturb them."
"What does Ella do?" asked one, and Mrs. Johnson replied, "She merely fixes her curls in the broken looking-glass, and cries because she is hungry."
"She is pretty, I believe?" said Mrs. Campbell, and Rosa Pond, who sat by the window, and had not spoken before, immediately answered, "Oh, yes, she is perfectly beautiful; and do you know, Mrs. Campbell, that when she is dressed clean and nice, I think she looks almost exactly like your little Ella!"
A haughty frown was Mrs. Campbell's only answer, and Rosa did not venture another remark, although several whispered to her that they, too, had