CHAPTER V.

_A NEW LIFE._

FOR many days Rhoda was very ill with a kind of nervous fever, and for many more she lay in her pleasant little room, weak and languid, and so thoroughly depressed that her friends began to fear for her mind. She had every care and kindness, for every one in the house knew her story and felt interested in her, and even Aunty Parsons, who generally resented whatever was done for anybody else as so much taken from herself, expressed the opinion that that girl wasn't half taken care of, and ought to have some real good whisky with cherry bark in it, that being a cordial to which the old lady was much addicted.

A few days after Mr. Bowers left Rhoda at "The Home," he sent her by express a box containing all the books and other possessions she had left behind her at Boonville, together with an envelope containing ten dollars, but not a word of a letter.

Rhoda never asked for news from her former home—never alluded to her adopted parents in any way. She lay quite still, with her eyes closed or gazing out of the window opposite her bed, giving very little trouble and never speaking except when spoken to. All the lady managers had been to see her; and if there were anything in the old sign, Mr. Bowers's left ear must have rung like a chime of bells at the opinions expressed of his conduct.

Rhoda had been at "The Home" about three weeks when she had one day a new visitor. Mrs. Worthington was one of the most active managers of "The Home," but she had been out of town for some time, and this was her first visit to the institution since her return. Of course she heard the whole story over in every room she visited.

"The doctor says she ain't no disease now," remarked Mrs. Josleyn, "but yet she don't seem to get no strength."

"No, and she won't so long as she is coddled up so," said Aunty Parsons, who had grown tired of sympathizing with Rhoda. "She ought to have some real good whisky with cherry bark in it, and be made to get up and exercise, and go out in the fresh air. What's the sense of her lying there when she hain't no disease?"

"It's just the trouble on her mind, you see," said Mrs. Josleyn, who was as sweet as her neighbour was sour. "She's had such trials, poor dear!"

"Her trials ain't nothing to mine," grumbled Mrs. Parsons; "nobody never went and signed away all her property. But if I was ever so much overcome by my troubles, you wouldn't catch Miss Carpenter making no chicken broth for me."

Mrs. Worthington smiled, but made no reply, well knowing from experience that there was no use in it. Mrs. Parsons was one of those people whom one finds it hard to think of as being happy in heaven, since there will be nothing in that locality for them to find fault with.

"In what room is this poor child?" Mrs. Worthington asked.

"She's in twenty-eight—the very room I always wanted; but of course they never would put me in there."

"Because they keep it for sick folks," Mrs. Josleyn.

"Well, and ain't I sick? Have I ever had a well day since I came into this house? But anything is good enough for me."

Mrs. Lambert, the nurse, an experienced and kind-hearted person, confirmed Mrs. Josleyn's opinion:

"Dr. H. says she hain't any disease, and I do really think she would be better for making a little effort, but I don't like to urge her, poor thing! If we could only find something to interest her!"

"Yes, that would be best. I think I will go in and see her."

Rhoda lay on the bed, as she had done for the last three weeks, and turned her eyes listlessly to the door as Mrs. Worthington entered, but they brightened a little as they rested on the visitor's face.

"Ah, little Rhoda!" said Mrs. Worthington, coming to the side of the bed and kissing her. "I think you remember me, don't you?"

"Yes, ma'am," answered Rhoda; "I remember you very well. When we had the measles in the house, just a little while before I went away, you took me over to your house, and let me stay two or three days. I remember how we played under the big tree in the back yard—Cathy and Rosy and I—and how the boys let out their rabbits. I suppose Cathy and Rosy are grown-up young ladies now."

And then, catching Mrs. Lambert's warning glance, she faltered, and said, "Oh, I am so sorry!"

"Never mind, dear; you have not hurt me at all. I like to hear you talk about them," said Mrs. Worthington. "Yes, they are all gone—Cathy and Rosy and the boys. We have a lonely house now, Rhoda. Poor Miss Smith is not troubled by the noise in our back yard any more."

"I remember how she came out and scolded us when we were playing 'king's land,'" said Rhoda; "and then, when Cathy cried, she went in and brought out a great plate of little almond cakes for us. Is she alive yet?"

"Oh yes; she is just the same as ever. She gave me a great deal of efficient help in John's last illness."

"Your house must seem very lonely," said Mrs. Lambert.

"Yes, it does indeed," said Mrs. Worthington, sadly. "It sometimes seems as if I could not go on living there, especially as Mr. Worthington has to be away so much. But I must keep a home for him, you know," said the bright little woman, brushing away the drops from her eyelids. "When it gets so that I can't bear it any longer, I just put on my bonnet and run away up to the hospital or over here and stay all the morning, and I always go home feeling cheerful again."

"Well, I will leave you with Rhoda a while," said Mrs. Lambert. "I have my hands full, now that Miss Brown is so helpless, though the old lady makes me very little work, considering—not half so much as some who are better able to wait on themselves. The other night I had just laid down, after being on my feet till nearly one o'clock, when, just as I was dropping off to sleep, Miss Martin screamed out to me from the top of the house that she was dying and wanted a cup of tea directly. You might have heard her down to the college, I am sure."

Rhoda laughed—a faint little ghost of a laugh:

"And was she?"

"Bless you, no, child—not near so much like dying as you were. I remembered how she had eaten stewed peaches at the supper-table, and I wasn't at all scared. So I just mixed some essence of ginger and took it up to her, and she was asleep again in half an hour."

"Was I really in any danger of dying?" asked Rhoda. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Where would have been the use when you were not able to think clearly, and when you were so weak that the mere telling might have made all the difference? But I really must go. Mrs. Worthington, you mean to stay and take dinner with us, don't you?"

"Oh yes; I have come for all day," said Mrs. Worthington, producing her tatting from her pocket. "I will sit here and take care of Rhoda a while."

After Mrs. Lambert had left the room, Rhoda lay for some time silently watching the motions of Mrs. Worthington's fingers. Then she sighed deeply.

"What are you thinking of, dear?" asked Mrs. Worthington.

"I was thinking about your little girls, and about myself," answered Rhoda, sighing again. "I was wondering why I didn't die when I was so sick."

"Shall I tell you what I think was the reason, Rhoda?"

"If you please."

"I think it was because your work in this world is not finished," said Mrs. Worthington.

Rhoda raised herself on her pillow and looked interested.

"I don't exactly know what you mean," said she. "Tell me, please."

"I think, my dear, that our heavenly Father has placed us here and given to each his or her allotted task, and that he keeps us here till we have finished it. Or to change the figure, this life is a kind of school-room in which we have each our lessons to learn. Some are hard, some are easy, but we must stay in the school-room till we have learned them as well as we are able. Then he lets us go home. My dear girls finished theirs very early. Mine, you see, takes longer, and yours are not done yet, though you have, as I may say, seen the door opened. You have your education to complete, and so you must stay."

Rhoda sighed again. The word "education" had sad associations for her.

"I thought I was going away to school when I came here," said she. "Mother—I mean Mrs. Bowers—told me so, and I never guessed at anything else. If they had only told me, I don't think I should have minded so much. I wonder if Aunt Hannah thought of it?" she continued, musingly. "I wonder if she thought it probable, and that what made her choose those texts to write in my Bible?"

"What texts?" asked Mrs. Worthington.

"Aunt Hannah gave me a Bible when she went away to the West, and she wrote some texts in it. She made me promise never to forget them. The Bible is there on the table, I believe."

Mrs. Worthington took up the book and read the passages which Miss Weightman had written on the blank leaves.

"These are precious words," said she. "I hope they have comforted you?"

"I am afraid they haven't," answered Rhoda, frankly. "Somehow, I haven't been able to think of anything comforting, only of how I have been treated."

"Ah, my poor child, that is an unprofitable subject of thought. Tell me, have you found grace to forgive Mr. and Mrs. Bowers?"

"No, I haven't—I can't!" said Rhoda, in great agitation. "It is not in human nature to forgive such an injury."

"Our Father requires us to do a great many things which are not in human nature," said Mrs. Worthington.

"I think that is very hard," said Rhoda.

"That depends," returned her friend. "If I give a boy, say, a Latin lesson which is quite beyond his power, and leave him to do it alone, without help, you would say that was very hard?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"But if I give him the same lesson, and say to him, I know very well that you cannot do this alone, but here are lexicons and grammars and commentaries and a translation, and, moreover, I will myself sit down with you and help you over the hard places, would not that alter the case?"

"It certainly would," answered Rhoda. "The boy would have no cause to complain."

"Well, just so our Lord deals with us. He gives us tasks far beyond sour natural powers, but he affords us every help—his word, his example, and his life; and he himself is ready to be with us and help us by his presence and his strength.

"'I am with you alway, even to the end of the world,—'

"I see is one of Aunt Hannah's verses.

"'I can do all things through Christ, which strengtheneth me,—'

"said the apostle, and he might well say so. You can no more make yourself forgiving than you can make yourself well and strong, but you can put yourself into the hands of One who can make you so if you really, honestly desire it."

"I'm afraid that has been the thing," Rhoda. "I haven't felt as if I wanted to forgive. It seems to me—"

"It seems to you a terrible wrong, and so it is," said Mrs. Worthington, as Rhoda paused. "I can hardly think of a greater. They promised to take care of you as their own, and they had no more right to turn you off than if you had been born to them. The first thing you have to do is to ask for the will to forgive; the rest will come in time. You might be worse off than you are here."

"Yes, indeed. Everybody is so kind to me."

"Well, there is one thing to be thankful for, at all events. You may be sure we shall not turn you off. I won't talk to you any more now, but I shall come to see you again. Try to get well as soon as you can."

So saying, Mrs. Worthington kissed Rhoda and went away, leaving the Bible lying open on the bed.

Rhoda took it up and turned the leaves over, reading here and there a passage which she found marked by Aunt Hannah's pencil. Then she lay still a long while with closed eyes and clasped hands, and at last she fell asleep.

She was waked by Mrs. Lambert's coming in with her dinner.

"Is it dinner-time? What a nice sleep I have had!" said Rhoda, rubbing her eyes.

"Good!" said Mrs. Lambert, depositing her tray on the table and bringing a basin of fresh water to the bedside. "If you begin to fall asleep in the day-time, you will sleep at night. Don't you want to wash your face? How do you feel?"

"Better," answered Rhoda, bathing her eyes. "I believe I could sit up and eat my dinner."

"Mrs. Worthington has done you good, I guess," said the nurse, arranging the rocking-chair and helping Rhoda to rise. "She is a real comfort in a sick-room or where any one is in trouble."

"She must have seen a great deal of trouble herself," remarked Rhoda, "losing all her children so. I remember Cathy and Rosy so well—such nice pretty little girls with such red, round cheeks."

"Yes, they all seemed healthy, but they pined and died one after the other. John lived to be a young man in college, and it did seem as if he would be spared, but he fell into a decline and died like the rest."

"And yet she seems so cheerful!" said Rhoda. "I don't see how she can."

"I expect she has to be," remarked Mrs. Lambert. "People that have had such great troubles can't afford to nurse and pet them all the time; they would go crazy if they did. Besides, Mrs. Worthington is always looking out for chances to help and comfort other people, and so she gets helped and comforted herself.

"'He that watereth shall be watered also himself,—'

"you know the good book says. Do you think you are going to be able to sit up?"

"Oh yes I feel a great deal stronger," said Rhoda.

Nevertheless, when Mrs. Lambert came up for the tray, she found her patient quite ready to lie down again.

"I thought I was going to be ever so smart, but I got tired very soon," said Rhoda. "I wonder how I came to lose my strength so?"

"You have been very sick, child; and besides, you had a dreadful shock. It was enough to kill you, I am sure. Can I do any more for you?"

"No, thank you; only, please, will you ask Mrs. Worthington to come in a minute before she goes, if it isn't too much trouble?"

"Oh, she won't think it a trouble. She is sitting with Miss Brown."

"Did you say Miss Brown was sick? I suppose it is the same Miss Brown I remember—the one who always had a little dog?"

"Yes, the very same. She has had a bad fall and broken her leg above the ankle, and Doctor H— says she won't walk again in a good while, if ever. She is an old lady, you see. She is confined to her bed, of course; and as she can't read much lying down, it is pretty dull for her."

"I want to tell you one thing, Mrs. Worthington," said Rhoda when that lady entered: "I don't want you to think that Mr. and Mrs. Bowers ever abused me. They were always as good to me as they could be till the baby was born, and even after that, though they never were quite the same."

"I understand," said Mrs. Worthington.

"I suppose they have never been heard from," said Rhoda, wistfully. "Do they know I have been sick, I wonder?"

"Yes; Mrs. Mulford wrote, but she never had any answer, except that Mr. Bowers sent a box of things for you, and also some money. I am afraid there is nothing to hope for in that quarter, my child."

"I am sure there is not," said Rhoda. "I don't think I should go back, even if they wanted me. I do want to forgive them, and I think I shall, but I can't feel as if I wanted to see them again. But I don't wish people to think them worse than they are."