The English Orphans | Page 5

clouds, from which the rain was steadily falling,--not in drizzly
showers, but in large round drops, which beat against the casement and
then bounded off upon the pavement below.
All thoughts of Mr. Howard were given up for that day and as every
moment of Mr. Selden's time was employed for several successive ones,
it was nearly a week after George's arrival before any inquiries were
made for the family. The hotel at which they had stopped was then
found, but Mr. Selden was told that 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