’Oh, the vicar, to be sure; and he seemed finely
surprised to see Miss Hamilton there. “So
you’ve come to see your old scholar,” he
says, smiling, and Miss Hamilton says, “Yes;
but she must go now,” and she drops her glove,
and parson looks for it, but it was too dark, and for
all his groping it could not be found. “I
must just go without it,” says Miss Hamilton;
“but I have got my muff, and it does not matter,”
and she says good-bye, and goes away. Parson
found it, though,’ went on Robin garrulously.
’When Sally lighted the candle he spies it at
once, and puts it in his pocket. “Miss
Hamilton will be fine and glad when you tell her it
is found,” I says to parson; but he just looks
at me in an odd sort of way, and says, “Yes,
Robin, certainly.”—’And you
won’t forget to give it to her, to-morrow, sir?’
but he did not seem to hear me. “Good-night,
my man,” he said. “So Miss Hamilton
did not think you were too old to be kissed.”
And he kissed me just in the same place as she did.
What did you say, miss?’
‘I did not say anything, Robin.’
’Didn’t you, miss? I thought I heard
you say “poor man,” or something like
that. Is not Miss Hamilton beautiful? I think
she is almost as beautiful as my picture of the Virgin
Mary. I asked parson if he did not think so,
and he said yes. Do you think she will come again
soon?’
‘We shall see, Robbie dear.’ But,
as I spoke, something told me that we should not see
Miss Hamilton there again.
CHAPTER XIX
THE PICTURE IN GLADYS’S ROOM
The days flew rapidly by, and I was almost too busy
to heed them as they passed. Each morning I woke
with fresh energy to my day’s work; the hours
were so full of interest and varied employment that
my evening rest came all too soon. I grew so
fond of my patients, especially of poor little Robin,
that I never left them willingly; and the knowledge
that I was necessary to them, that they looked to
me for relief and comfort, seemed to fill my life
with sweetness.
As I said to myself daily, no one need complain that
one’s existence is objectless, or altogether
desolate, as long as there are sick bodies and sick
souls to which one can minister. For ’Give,
and it shall be given unto you,’ is the Divine
command, and sympathy and help bestowed on our suffering
fellow-creatures shall be repaid into our bosoms a
hundredfold. I was right in my surmise:
Miss Hamilton did not again visit her little scholar;
but Lady Betty came almost daily, and was a great help
in amusing the child. I was with him for an hour
in the morning, and again in the late afternoon; but
Mrs. Marshall took up the greater part of my time;
she was growing more feeble every day, and needed my
constant care. Unless it were absolutely necessary,
I was unwilling to sacrifice my night’s rest,
or to draw too largely on my stock of strength; but
I had fallen into the habit, during the last week
