The Wide, Wide World | Page 5

my cup runneth over.
" 'Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.' "
Long before she had finished, Ellen's eyes were full, and her heart too. "If I only could feel these words as Mamma does!" she said to herself. She did not dare look up till the traces of tears had passed away; then she saw that her mother was asleep. Those first sweet words had fallen like balm upon the sore heart; and mind and body had instantly found rest together.
Ellen breathed the lightest possible kiss upon her forehead, and stole quietly out of the room to her own little bed.
CHAPTER II.
Gives sorrow to the winds.
Sorrow and excitement made Ellen's eyelids heavy, and she slept late on the following morning. The great dressing-bell waked her. She started up with a confused notion that something was the matter: there was a weight on her heart that was very strange to it. A moment was enough to bring it all back; and she threw herself again on her pillow, yielding helplessly to the grief she had twice been obliged to control the evening before. Yet love was stronger than grief still, and she was careful to allow no sound to escape her that could reach the ears of her mother, who slept in the next room. Her resolve was firm to grieve her no more with useless expressions of sorrow — to keep it to herself as much as possible. But this very thought, that she must keep it to herself, gave an edge to poor Ellen's grief, and the convulsive clasp of her little arms round the pillow plainly showed that it needed none.
The breakfast-bell again startled her, and she remembered she must not be too late down stairs, or her mother might inquire and find out the reason. "I will not trouble mother — I will not — I will not!" she resolved to herself as she got out of bed, though the tears fell faster as she said so. Dressing was sad work to Ellen to-day; it went on very heavily. Tears dropped into the water as she stooped her head to the basin; and she hid her face in the towel to cry, instead of making the ordinary use of it. But the usual duties were dragged through at last, and she went to the window. "I'll not go down till papa is gone," she thought — "he'll ask me what is the matter with my eyes."
Ellen opened the window. The rain was over; the lovely light of a fair September morning was beautifying everything it shone upon. Ellen had been accustomed to amuse herself a good deal at this window, though nothing was to be seen from it but an ugly city prospect of back walls of houses, with the yards belonging to them, and a bit of narrow street. But she had watched the people that showed themselves at the windows, and the children that played in the yards, and the women that went to the pumps, till she had become pretty well acquainted with the neighbourhood; and though they were for the most part dingy, dirty, and disagreeable — women, children, houses, and all — she certainly had taken a good deal of interest in their proceedings. It was all gone now. She could not bear to look at them; she felt as if it made her sick; and turning away her eyes, she lifted them to the bright sky above her head, and gazed into its clear depth of blue till she almost forgot that there was such a thing as a city in the world. Little white clouds were chasing across it, driven by the fresh wind that was blowing away Ellen's hair from her face, and cooling her hot cheeks. That wind could not have been long in coming from the place of woods and flowers, it was so sweet still. Ellen looked till, she didn't know why, she felt calmed and soothed — as if somebody was saying to her softly, "Cheer up, my child, cheer up; things are not so bad as they might be: things will be better." Her attention was attracted at length by voices below; she looked down, and saw there, in one of the yards, a poor deformed child, whom she had often noticed before, and always with sorrowful interest. Besides his bodily infirmity, he had a further claim on her sympathy, in having lost his mother within a few months. Ellen's heart was easily touched this morning; she felt for him very much. "Poor, poor little fellow!" she thought; "he's a great deal worse off than I am. His mother is dead; mine is only going away