Chapter X

NELLY had now reached the height of her ambition. She was actually employed in the same store with her dear Miss Powell, and under her eyes,—in that same store which had so often attracted her longing gaze as being a paradise of every thing-wonderful and beautiful.

She was learning something new every day. She had the pleasure of feeling that she gave entire satisfaction to her employers, and of knowing that even granny was gratified with her improved condition. Yes, Nelly had attained the height of her ambition.

Like other and greater people, however, Nelly discovered that in reaching this height she had by no means left all her troubles behind her. The store was a very popular one, and Nelly entered at the busiest season. They were thronged with customers from morning till night. Nelly must learn to attend to two or three at once, to answer questions upon two or three different subjects without becoming confused, to remember where every thing was, and to employ every spare minute with her crochet-needle; for there was a greater demand even than usual at that season for babies' jackets and blankets, scarfs and afghans, and all the other worsted articles in which Mrs. Kirkland dealt so largely. She must learn to do all this, to preserve her patience and presence of mind, and not lose her temper when, as now and then happened, customers were rude or unreasonable. It was far harder work than tending Crummie, and tried Nelly's nerves much more severely. No matter how hard she might have worked or how far she might have run out-of-doors, she could always fall asleep the instant she went to bed, and never wake till it was time to get up. But now she found her work haunting her at night in a very unpleasant fashion. The patterns she had been working stared her in the face; she saw endless buttons, of all possible and impossible styles, whenever she shut her eyes; and her dreams were tormented with visions of wrong change, of bundles mis-sent, and customers hopelessly offended: so that she seemed to rise in the morning as tired as she went to bed. She began to grow thin, pale and nervous. Miss Powell herself noticed the change in her.

"You are growing nervous, Nelly," said she. "What is the matter?"

"I do get so tired," said Nelly, laying down her work and leaning back in her chair (a rare luxury, which a hopelessly rainy and slushy day allowed her to enjoy). "I never was so tired before in all my life. I used to think it was very hard work running after Crummie; but it did not weary me any thing like so much as this does. It makes my head so tired!"

"I am afraid you carry too much of your work home with you," said Miss Powell. "Don't you sit up at night to work?"

"No, ma'am granny won't let me."

"I am glad she has so much sense. But Nelly, you must learn not to carry it in your mind, either. Try, as soon as you get home, to put every thing which concerns the shop out of your head, and think about something else."

"I do try," said Nelly; "but I don't make out very well; and I get so fidgety in the store,—so afraid of making mistakes in change, or prices, or something! I do want to do just right and please Mrs. Kirkland. But I am afraid I never shall learn. I am afraid she doesn't like me, after all; and I do so—"

Nelly's voice was lost in the tears which would come in spite of her.

Miss Powell laid down her work and took Nelly's hand in her own.

"You are a little fanciful, my child. Why should you think that you don't please Mrs. Kirkland?"

"She looks so sober," said Nelly; "and she hardly spoke to me all day yesterday."

"Is that all?" asked Miss Powell. "You don't consider, Nelly, how much care Mrs. Kirkland has on her mind. She has all her business, in the first place; then she is uneasy about Miss Alice, whose ankle does not get any better; and she has other troubles more serious still. But she is so far from being displeased with you, that I heard her tell Mr. Willson only last night what a comfort and help you were to her. She said you repaid her twice over for all she had ever done for you; for, though you made mistakes sometimes, you were honest and faithful in sight and out of sight: you did not idle away half your time in gossiping or looking out of the window the moment her back was turned."

Nelly blushed high with delight. "I am sure I want to please her," said she, earnestly.

"And you do please her: so you may set your heart at rest about that. And as for the rest, Nelly, do you remember the chant they sung in church yesterday morning before service?"

"Yes, ma'am: it was, 'Cast thy burden on the Lord, and he shall sustain thee.' I thought it was beautiful. I kept singing it all the afternoon."

"But I fear you did not think of applying it to your own case, Nelly. Why don't you do the same thing? Why don't you cast your burden on the Lord, and trust him to sustain you?"

"I don't know," replied Nelly. "I never thought I could."

"Try it, and see. Tell him all about what troubles you."

"What!" interrupted Nelly. "About my puzzles in making change and remembering the prices of things?"

"Yes, to be sure. Why not?"

"I did want to; but I did not know as it would be right," said Nelly. "Kitty Brown says she does not believe it is right to pray about such things,—only about our souls."

"I rather think Kitty has not looked into her Catechism lately," said Miss Powell. "Are we not to ask God to give us all things needful for our souls and bodies?"

"Yes, ma'am. I didn't think of that, though, when we were talking about it."

"You need never be afraid to ask God for any thing," said Miss Powell. "If you have a desire that you are afraid to ask God to bless, be sure that desire is wrong and ought to be put down."

"It can't be wrong for me to want to keep my place and earn money to pay for our house," said Nelly.

"No, indeed. But Nelly, you must pray in faith, my child. You must not ask God in the morning to give you strength and wisdom to do your duty through the day, and then go on worrying for fear you shall not do it. That would be casting your burden upon the Lord and then taking it up and carrying it away again. A great many people go on in that way all their lives, and get very little good from it. You must ask him to help you and then believe he will, and go on in the strength of that prayer. Try it, and see if he does not keep his promise."

Nelly followed her friend's advice, and found, as every one will who honestly trusts Him, that he does keep his promise. She strove resolutely to put away all thoughts of the store and her work as soon as she went to bed, and to give her last waking thoughts to God, by repeating the hymns, verses and prayers she had learned in Sunday-school. She presently found herself beginning to sleep much better, and her work no longer troubled her dreams. Mrs. Kirkland took care to send her upon all the errands, and Nelly found the exercise very beneficial to her.

It troubled Nelly a good deal that she had so little time for her lessons. She could not go to Mrs. Caswell with her arithmetic more than twice a week, and then she found time to prepare only a very short recitation. She comforted herself with the thought that she was learning in one way, if not in another (which was true; for she was learning to be very ready in making change and calculating prices), and also in thinking that she would have more time after the holidays, when the rush of work and trade should slacken a little.

Nelly had another trouble in the store, which she did not mention to Miss Powell, but which distressed her greatly. She was pretty sure that she several times missed little articles, which had not passed through her hands. They were not things of any very great value,—a stick of braid of some special sort, a few odd buttons of some particular pattern, a spool or two of coloured silk out of a box which should have been full,—but Nelly was sure that they did not go properly. She could not suspect any one in the shop. There was no one employed but herself and Miss Powell down-stairs and Miss Lennox up-stairs. Mrs. Kirkland was usually at the desk, busied, when not making change or engaged with the books, in some wonderful piece of embroidery.

Nelly came to the conclusion that the thief was one of the habitual customers of the store. She resolved to watch closely. She did so, and at last made up her mind. The thief was that very lady who had called her a ragamuffin while she was learning to make tatting on her first entrance to the store! Nelly was very slow in coming to this conclusion. She could not make up her mind to think that a lady belonging to a respectable family; who had always been well taught, always gone to church and to Sunday-school, could be guilty of stealing. She even accused herself of uncharitableness and bearing malice because the lady had affronted her. But the more closely she watched the more sure she became that her suspicions were correct.

Then arose the very grave question, what to do about it? Suppose she should tell her suspicions: would Mrs. Kirkland believe her word against that of a lady, an old customer? Would she not run the risk of losing her own place, without doing anybody any good,—that place for which she had prayed and worked, and in which she was striving so hard to give satisfaction? On the other hand, was it right to allow her employer to be robbed? The thefts grew bolder and bolder every day; and Kelly began to be afraid that she should herself be accused. Mrs. Kirkland had missed some little articles; and Nelly fancied that she began to watch her more closely. She could not ask advice without mentioning her suspicions; and she did not like to do this till she was quite certain. It was a great responsibility to fall upon the shoulders of a girl like Nelly, and it almost weighed her down. She was conscious that something should be done directly, and yet she could not make up her mind what to do. But one thing she did know,—that God had always helped her before whenever she had asked him; and she went again and again to the same source of strength and wisdom. The light and the counsel came at last, and from rather an unexpected quarter.

Granny had lately learned to take great pleasure in hearing Nelly read, especially in the Testament,—at first from pride in the child's achievements, but latterly from interest in the book itself. Granny had rather fallen between two stools, if I may say so, in the matter of religious belief. Her mother's family were Romanists; but the Butlers were Protestants; and granny's mother, partly from pride, partly from affection, had professed to follow her husband's faith; though, in fact, she knew little about it. She had taught her little girl to call herself a Protestant, and to feel a pride in adhering to her father's religion and setting at defiance all the coaxings and persecutions of her aunts and cousins. She sent the little Gracie to the Ladies' school, instead of to the Sisters'; and, though Gracie was neither very regular in her attendance nor very diligent when there, she had learned her creed and some few rudiments of doctrine. She had always called herself a Protestant, even after she married Tim Ryan (who was a Romanist of the very-easy-going kind); but her religious notions were dim and obscure. Such as they were, they began to be awakened by Nelly's reading and by her accounts of what she heard in Sunday-school. She began to take pleasure in recalling and repeating things which she had learned in her youth; and when Nelly was away she would sometimes take the large-print Testament Miss Powell had given the child, and spell out a chapter by herself.

One Sunday afternoon, Nelly had been reading aloud the parable of the talents. When she had finished it, she exclaimed at the stupidity and laziness of the slothful servant.

"I'm thinking there was more than that the matter; though that's bad enough, mind," said the old woman, shrewdly. "I'm thinking the poor crater was a coward, me dear."

"How?" asked Nelly. "What was he afraid of, granny?"

"Why, ye see, dear, he would run some risk in trading with his lord's money," replied granny. "He might lose it, or make some bad speculation with it, and so be blamed when his lord came home; and he was so afraid of being found fault with that he just did nothing at all,—which was the very worst thing he could do."

"I see," said Nelly, thoughtfully.

"I remember a story that would show you what I mean—" continued granny, "a true story, too, that happened in Ireland when I was a girl like yourself."

"Oh, do tell it, granny!" exclaimed Nelly. "I love true stories."

"Well, you must know, dear, that one of my uncles—Martin was his name, and a good, steady lad, but not wonderful knowing—was groom at the great house,—that's not Kilmane Park, you understand, but Dunsandle House, the seat of Sir Patrick Byrne. Sir Patrick was wonderful fond of horses, and his children took after him,—especially his eldest daughter, Miss Una, the boldest rider to hounds in all the county, and as constant at the hunt as the huntsman himself. Well, there was one horse in the stable that was a terror to all the grooms and to Sir Patrick himself,—a chestnut mare. She was named Pooka; and you would think an evil spirit was in her, by the look of her eye. Well, this very mare it was, above all others, Miss Una was possessed to ride; and ride her she would, for all her father and friends could say; and at last Sir Patrick forbade the grooms to saddle Pooka for Miss Una. So what does Miss Una do, but get up very early in the morning, open the stable with a key she had, saddle the horse herself—"

"A young lady saddle a horse!" interrupted Nelly.

"Sure she could do it as well as any man; for she had been, as you might say, brought up with horses,—more was the pity! So she saddled the mare herself, and was off for a gallop before any of them was up; and when Martin, who was head-groom, came to the stable, there was the mare gone and the door unlocked. Here was a pretty to-do! At first, Martin thought the baste had been stolen; but then he remembered that she would never let a stranger touch her; and, looking about, he picked up Miss Una's handkerchief; which she had dropped in the stall. That gave him a guess at the truth; and while he was standing debating in his own mind what to do, up comes Miss Una, with the mare all in a foam. She started and laughed when she saw Martin standing there."

"'Ah, Martin, so you have caught me! but I was too quick for you,' said she, giving her head a saucy toss, and looking beautiful, my uncle said. 'I'm determined not to lose my rides on Pooka,' said she, patting, the mare's neck."

"'And what am I to say to Sir Patrick?' said Martin."

"'What you like,' answered Miss Una, with another toss; 'only you will repent if you tell tales; that's all.'"

"She wasn't much of a lady, anyhow," observed Nelly.

"We won't be hard upon her," said granny, gravely. "She was a motherless girl from her birth, and had grown up as wild as a hawk, petted by her father out of all reason one day and crossed out of all reason the next. Well, you see, my dear, Martin was between two fires if Sir Patrick knew that he had let Miss Una ride the mare, he would be turned off, and may-be thrashed into the bargain,—for Sir Patrick was a violent man; and again, if he made an enemy of Miss Una, he knew what that would come to; for she was sure to have her own way with her father, by hook or by crook, and it was a boast with that family that they never forgot a friend or forgave an enemy; and the latter part was true, whether the former was or not."

"The right way would have been the brave way,—of telling the truth, and doing as he was bid; but Martin was afraid to do that. So he rubbed down the mare and did the best he could with her; and when Sir Patrick noticed that she did not seem fresh, he made some excuse, being mighty knowledgable about horses. So every morning Miss Una takes a gallop on the mare, and Martin saddles the beast for her; for he thought that was one risk the less, anyhow. And Miss Una—poor dear!—was wonderful pleased with having her own way, and gave Martin and Martin's wife many a present; for she was laundress at the house, which was another reason that Martin was afraid to tell."

"But now see the end. One morning, Pooka had been more than commonly vicious and spiteful, and Martin begged and prayed Miss Una, on his knees almost, not to ride her; but all in vain. He might as well have talked to the mountain-torrent. So away she went in her beauty and her pride; but she never, never came back alive."

"Martin waited and waited, blaming himself all the time, and wishing, too late, that he had done the straightforward thing at first. Well, it came breakfast-time, and Miss Una was not there, nor in her room; and there was great wonderment where she could be, and no little alarm and stir; for you must know there had been a love-affair between her and her cousin, whom Sir Patrick had forbidden the house; and the first thing every one thought, was that Miss Una had gone off with her cousin."

"At last the stir came to Sir Patrick's ears; and when he found out that Miss Una was missing, he raved like a madman about the house, declaring and swearing that he would never see her face again. At last he went down to the stable for his own horse, to follow the runaways,—alas! alas! just in time to see the chestnut rush home covered with sweat and dirt, the saddle turned half round, but no Miss Una."

"They followed the track of the mare in the road till they found the poor girl lying by the way-side, all torn and disfigured by having been dragged over the rocky roads. At first they thought she was dead; but as they lifted her to lay her on a turfy bank under a tree, she just opened her eyes, and, seeing her father standing over her, she said, faintly,—"

"'Papa, Martin was not to blame.'"

"I'm glad she said that, anyway," said Nelly, who was crying heartily over the story.

"It was the last word she ever spoke," continued granny, wiping her own eyes. "They made a litter to carry her home, but she breathed out her life there, under the great ash that is called Miss Una's tree to this day; and it was only her bleeding and mangled body that was carried home to the great house."

"Sir Patrick was like one out of his mind, with grief and rage. He cursed Martin so, it was awful to hear him; and not only that, but he turned him and his wife away, and drove the whole family off his land, where they had lived for generations,—since the flood, for aught I know,—to wander where they would. He declared the mare should be starved.* But Martin saved him from that sin; for he just took a pistol and shot her dead before his master's face."

"So you see, honey," concluded the old woman, "it would have been far better for Martin to have done his duty, leaving the consequences to take care of themselves. He was a broken man ever after, and never could sleep without dreaming it all over again. And, my dear, take my advice, and always do the straight thing and the open thing, even if it should seem to be the greatest risk in the world, and you be ever so much blamed. The blessing of God shines on the straight path."

"And that's true," said Nelly, drawing a long breath, as if relieved of a heavy weight; "and I'll do it, too, cost what it may. Thank you, granny, for telling me the story."

* A fact.