CHAPTER III.

E l'aspettar del male è mal peggiore Forse, che non parrebbe il mal presente.

Tasso.

Susan was a good-hearted girl, but she had a high spirit. She had a generous temper, but it was not always under control. Of all qualities a sweet temper is perhaps the one least cultivated in the lower ranks of life. The peculiar disposition is not watched; care is not taken to distinguish between the passionate child, the sulky, the obstinate, and the timid. The children of the poor are allowed a latitude of speech unknown among the higher orders, and they are free from the salutary restraint imposed by what is termed "company."

When in the enjoyment of full health and strength, the ungoverned temper of the poor is one of their most striking faults, while their resignation under affliction, whether mental or bodily, is the point of all others in which the rich might with advantage study to imitate them.

Susan's spirit was not yet tamed by affliction. There were moments when she could not bear, without impatience, the pain her eyes occasioned her, and the weight of care which oppressed her mind.

It was towards George that she most frequently evinced any signs of captiousness; and yet it was on his account that she most poignantly felt her present affliction, and her future prospects. She was more unhappy than she quite ventured to own to herself, or to him; more apprehensive of what might be the result. She feared he would not always continue to be as kind as he now was. She could not expect it; and she sometimes received his simple attentions as if she was more surprised, than touched by them.

One evening he brought her some flowers from his father's garden.

"Well! I shall be able to smell," she said, "even when I shall not be able to see; but perhaps, George, you will not go on bringing me flowers then! What beautiful double-stocks these are! we can't get any to grow like these in our little bit of garden."

"I raised them for father myself, Susan; so I don't see why we should not have some, just as fine, and finer, when we have a garden of our own!" And poor George looked pleased at her praise of his pet flower.

"I dare say you will never get any to come so thick and so double another time,--even if you should try," answered Susan despondingly; for she thought, "when could she hope to have a home of her own?"

"And do you think I shall not try, Susan, to make my wife's home as nice as father's?"

"Maybe you will,--and I may not be there to see it."

"Why, Susan, I do not know what is come over you; there is no pleasing you. I thought you would like my flowers!"

"And so I do, George; and I am very much obliged to you for them," she continued in a tone of gratitude almost beyond what the occasion called for. Presently she added, in a sad, low voice, "You are very good to me, very good indeed."

Just at this moment Nicholas and his dame were seen approaching the garden-gate. She was leading him from the stile over which he loved to lean, and to feel the warm sun on his eyes, and turn his face in the direction of the setting orb. Sarah was hobbling back, guiding the blind old man, whose firmer step assisted in supporting her suffering frame. George opened the cottage-door to admit them, and the slant beams of the sun glanced through the opening upon poor Susan's eyes.

The sudden light pained her; and although she had one moment before reproached herself with not being sufficiently grateful for the kindness shown her, she exclaimed somewhat pettishly, "Don't you know, George, how it hurts my eyes to have the light glare upon them all at once?" at the same time pushing back her chair with an impatient movement, which was accounted for, but not justified, by the pain which she suffered.

The sight of her poor blind father, and of his meek expression of countenance, recalled her to herself. She hastened to him and helped him to his chimney-nook, and then assisted her mother to her usual chair. They each thanked her in a kind and gentle voice, and she felt inwardly rebuked by their patience and their submission.

George had stood aloof, awkward and mortified. She drew near him. "I beg your pardon, George," she murmured: "George, I do not know what is come to me;" and she burst into tears.

"Never fret, Susan; I don't mind. 'Tis very natural, I dare say, that you should be a little testy or so: don't cry, your mother says 'tis so bad for you. I don't mind, though, to be sure, you do sometimes hurt my feelings a little." Dame Forster thought she saw him brush off a tear with the back of his hand.

"Why, what's the matter, Susan? Sure you and George have not been falling out, have you?"

"Oh, no! not a bit of it, dame!"

"George is very good to me, mother; but I don't know how it is, I believe sometimes I am hard to please;" and she strove to smile.

"Ah, my poor girl," said Nicholas, "trouble is hard to bear when first it comes; but the back gets used to the burden. If you are a good girl, and say your prayers as should be, God will give you strength to bear what it is his pleasure to lay upon you. Won't He, dame? I am sure we have found it so. He is very merciful; and if He gives us trouble, He sends us comfort to make up for it. If it has pleased Him to afflict me with blindness, He has given me a good wife--ay, the best of wives; and if she is afflicted with her side, poor soul! why He has given her, and me too, dutiful children, and children who, some of them, are likely to do very well. There are our two boys, though they are settled in distant counties, they are very good to us, and have never let us want for anything, but have kept us off the parish as yet; and that's what few people can say for their sons. If we do but look the right way for them, we shall all find we have our comforts; though we may not be so sharp to find them out, as we are to find our troubles."

Among Susan's causes of uneasiness there was one which she did not like to dwell upon to her parents. She had been used to assist towards the maintenance of the family, by taking in needle-work. She had now for many weeks been obliged to give up her occupation; and she felt that, though her brothers provided for the comfort of their parents, it was hard upon them to have a helpless sister also to support.

She was allowed to be much in the air if she wore a shade over her eyes; and she frequently made use of this liberty to visit an old neighbour, who had long been bedridden, and who earned herself a decent livelihood by knitting stockings for the poor, and muffettees and handkerchiefs for the gentry, who admired the intricate and curious stitches with which she adorned her work.

Susan, who already contemplated the probability of being eventually condemned to blindness, thought it would prove useful if, while she still retained some eye-sight, she was to make herself acquainted with old Nelly's art; and accordingly she applied herself diligently to acquire the requisite proficiency. She would sometimes close her eyes and try whether she could thus accomplish the difficult stitch; and then, when she opened them for the purpose of ascertaining where lay her mistake, she would sigh to think the time might soon arrive when the darkness would be eternal.

Susan's visits to Nelly Warner had a considerable and not unfavourable influence upon her future character.

The old woman was naturally of a querulous disposition, and was more inclined to dwell on the many privations to which her complaint condemned her, than on the superior comforts which fell to her lot beyond others who were equally afflicted. She had an attentive grand-daughter, who was devoted to her; and she was not in want of what might in her line of life be deemed comforts, for the neighbouring gentry showed her much kindness.

Susan could not but compare the patient endurance of her mother, the placid submission of her father, with the fretfulness of Nelly Warner; and when she answered her complaints with such arguments for resignation as naturally occurred to her mind, she could not but apply the words she uttered to her own case.

"So you are come at last, Susan," said old Nelly, in a reproachful tone; "I have been expecting you this half-hour. The church clock has gone three, I do not know how long. Young people should not keep old folks waiting, more especially when they want them to do them a kindness."

"It is only ten minutes past three, Nelly; I looked as I came by; but I am sorry I was not quite to my time. The bright sun dazzled my eyes, and I went back to get mother to alter my green shade."

"Ah! young folks always have some excuse or another which they think mighty good themselves. It fidgets a poor body like me to lie wondering, and expecting, and listening to hear the door open! When one is helpless and ailing, as I am, folks should take care not to worry one. It is bad enough to bear one's own miseries. Here I lie, and what pleasure have I from one week's end to another?"

"Little enough of pleasure, indeed, dear Nelly, except the pleasure of doing a kindness by me," said Susan, as she took out her knitting needles. "Then you have little Patty to help you, and to bring you all you want, and she is a good child. Some people, Nelly, have not the comfort of such a good little girl to attend to them: sure you have much to be grateful for."

"I can't tell what I have to be grateful for. There's Master Thompson, he is two years older than I am, and he is hearty and well, and goes to his work regularly, and earns as much as a young man. And there's my own sister Pratt, why she's ten years older than I am, and she can walk to market."

"Oh, but, Nelly, the way to be contented is to compare our condition with those who are worse off than ourselves. You want for nothing; you are able to earn a good deal yourself. Now, I can't earn anything yet:" she added in a very low voice; "and people are very good to you."

"They like my warm muffettees well enough; but I need not thank them, but myself, for that."

Susan felt shocked at Nelly's ill-temper and ingratitude, and she thought what a hard task it must be for Patty to study the humours of such a discontented old woman.

She remembered how kind her mother had always been to her, she remembered how patiently George had borne with her, and she resolved she would not put him to such trials any more.

The uncertainty in which she remained concerning her future fate, sometimes appeared to her harder to bear than the knowledge of the truth would be, and she made up her mind she would some day ask the doctor what was his real opinion of her case. But many a visit passed over without her summoning the requisite courage. If he should destroy all the hopes she still indulged, what should she do? How ought she to conduct herself towards George? Could she wish him to be 'cumbered with a blind wife?

While all these contending feelings were working in her mind, she found it difficult to be always gentle and placid, and yet she was ashamed before her good resigned parents to give way to impatience. They never tutored her, they never gave her advice; but

'Example more than precept weighs,'

and their whole lives were one continued moral lesson.

Susan was one day sitting at home, with her back towards the light, diligently plying her long needles, when she suddenly addressed her mother: "Mother, do you think I shall ever get well?"

"There's no saying, my dear Susan; such things are in the hands of Providence!"

"Mother, has the doctor ever told you anything?" she asked, with a great effort.

"No, my child, he has never said anything for certain: but how do you feel your eyes yourself?"

"No better, mother, no better; I don't think they will last long, and that's the truth of it," she said, relieved by giving utterance to what had been so long preying on her mind.

"My poor Susan! The Lord have mercy upon you, and bear you up under this affliction!--and He will, my child,--depend upon it, He will. But it goes harder with me, Susan, to see you so, than it has to bear all the other troubles I have ever been visited with."

"Well, mother, don't fret; we will hope," said Susan, alarmed herself at the alarm she had excited in her mother's bosom, and half disappointed at not meeting with more reassurement; but Sarah had long perceived with grief that her daughter made no progress towards amendment, and the melancholy truth had gradually forced itself upon her mind.

The doctor called one day, when the dame was leading her good man to his usual stile, and Susan was therefore alone. She determined to put the question to him, and to be assured whether she ought, or ought not, to relinquish all hope. Having thus armed herself with resolution to hear the worst, she framed her question with such apparent composure, and as if she entertained so little expectation of recovery, that the doctor thought there was no occasion to deceive her, and did not attempt to deny that her fears were only too well grounded. She dropped him a respectful court'sy, and only said, "Thank you, sir." He praised her for her strength of mind, advised her to seek fortitude whence alone it was to be found, and recommended her being as much as possible in the open air, that her general health might not suffer.

When he had taken his leave,--when poor Susan found herself quite alone,--then all her strength of mind forsook her. She relieved her bursting heart by floods of tears; and had scarcely recovered any composure, when her father and mother returned from their evening stroll to the neighbouring stile. That night Susan could not sleep, but she pondered deeply on the future.