CHAPTER X.

"THE LITTLE COMFORTER."

"Thy love Shall chant itself its own beatitudes, After its own life wailing. A child kiss, Set on thy sighing lips, shall make thee glad; A poor man, served by thee, shall make thee rich; A rich man, helped by thee, shall make thee strong. Thou shalt be served thyself by every sense Of service which thou renderest."--_E. B. Browning._

On her next visit, which was to be her last before they started for Hepshaw, Mr. Calcott received Queenie with more than his usual acrimony.

"In my time punctuality used to be considered a virtue," he said, severely, with an ominous glance at the time-piece, which showed Queenie she was some minutes late. "Never mind; I dare say this is the last time you will have to amuse a troublesome old man."

Queenie's eyes filled with tears.

"Please don't talk so, Mr. Calcott; not to-night, at least, when I have to bid you good-bye for so many weeks."

"Aye, you will be very sorry for that, no doubt," ironically.

"Yes," she returned, with the sweet candor natural to her; "far more sorry than I would have expected or believed."

He laughed a low, bitter laugh, that went to the girl's heart.

"And you think I shall credit that?"

"Why not? one must always believe the truth," she returned, simply. "When I first came here I pitied you dreadfully, and yet I was half afraid of you. I do not fear you at all now."

"Indeed!"

"Your moroseness used to terrify, but now I do not seem to mind all your hard words; they lurk under kind actions, and so they have lost their sting. It was kindness that prompted you to send me all those pretty things."

"Humph, I see the reason for all this civility now."

Queenie's eyes rested tenderly on the worn, cadaverous face.

"You see I am longing to thank you, and yet I hardly know how to do so without giving you offence."

"I hate thanks," gruffly. "There, girl, that will do; let us get to our reading," and Queenie, who saw that unusual suffering lay at the bottom of the old man's bitter humor, did not venture to thwart him just then.

When the time came for her to go she put the marker in the book carefully, and leant over him. As she touched him softly with her hand, he started and opened his eyes; they had a strange, almost a wild look in them for a moment.

"I could have sworn it was Emily's hand," he muttered. "Hers was always soft and warm, like the breast of a little bird. Pshaw! what rubbish I am talking; you have read me to sleep, child; I have been dreaming."

"Let me give you your draught, and talk to you a little; to-morrow I am going away, you know."

"Aye, to-morrow, and a good many to-morrows." She still held the cold, nerveless fingers in hers, and her voice was very gentle in his ear.

"I shall not like to think you are missing me; when evening comes I shall wish I were here beside you, reading to you and lulling your pain. It seems to me," continued the girl, speaking still more softly, "as though in some strange way, and out of strange circumstances, we have grown to be friends."

He sighed, and turned restlessly on his pillow, but there was no repulse.

"You have been very good to me, and I shall love to remember your goodness. I think mamma was right when she said you had a heart. To-morrow I am going away--as you know--for a long, long time, and I want you to do me a favor."

"Pshaw! I will do nothing blindfold," with a return of his old harshness; but, under the half-closed eyelids, how he watched it--the bright speaking face!

"I want you to see Emmie. Hush! do not refuse," as he gave utterance to an expression of impatience, almost disgust; "do not send me away less happy; do not refuse such a trifling request. If I have ever pleased you, if I have ever wiled away an hour of bitter pain, grant me this one favour: let the child stand here for a moment beside you."

"Can you not leave a dying man in peace?" he began savagely, but his wrath faded before the girl's mild glance. A brief spasm as of pain contracted his forehead, and his eyes closed.

"Have your foolish whim," he muttered at last, almost inaudibly. "But what have I to do with children? I always hated them."

"You will not hate Emmie," returned Queenie as she hurriedly rose; "it is a fine evening, and she pleaded for me to bring her; 'she wanted to see poor Uncle Andrew,' she said."

"Tell her not to call me that," he exclaimed, angrily; but Queenie had already closed the door behind her.

Another minute, and the child stood beside his couch. The evening sun shone full upon her; she had grown tall and thin from her long illness; the beautiful fair hair had been shaved off, but the soft yellow down peeped under the pretty cap border; the great blue eyes had a solemn, unchildlike look in them; a little wasted hand crept into the sick man's, and then patted it softly.

"Humph! so you are better, aye, after nearly frightening that sister of yours to death," with a milder growl than Queenie expected.

"I am much better, thank you, Uncle Andrew," returned Emmie, gravely; and then, perfectly undaunted by the grim, death-like face on the pillow before her, she clambered up on the bed beside it, and sat perched before him like a large soft-eyed bird. "Queenie thought I was going to die, and cried dreadfully every night; Cathy told me so. Are you going to die, Uncle Andrew?"

"It seems so," with a chord of ineffable bitterness rasping the thin voice.

Emmie leaned forward and stroked his face pityingly, with an old-fashioned womanliness that touched her sister greatly.

"I am so sorry; it seems such a pity, just as we were going to be fond of you; it will be so strange, too, missing you out of my prayers every night, not that it will do any harm to go on saying, 'God bless you,' even after you are dead," continued Emmie, reflectively, and in a slightly puzzled tone. "I asked Queenie about that, and she said she was not sure."

In spite of his iron nerve Mr. Calcott winced slightly. This mere babe was playing round the feet of the king of Terror, while he was quailing secretly at the thought of the skeleton hand raised ready to strike: it would find him in his darkness and loneliness; his truest friend would come to him in the guise of an enemy. He was not a weak man, but at this moment the thought of his solitary death-bed caused him to thrill with premonitory pain and anguish. And then, with an odd transition of idea, he remembered how one night, when he was a lad, he had been wakened from his sleep by an awful storm; and his little sister Emily had come crying to his bed-side, and had clung to him in an agony of terror. He remembered, as though it were yesterday, the little shivering figure in white, the tangled fair hair under the cap border, the childish voice broken with sobs, "Oh Andrew, dear Andrew, take care of me; I am so frightened."

"You are only a girl, Emmie; boys and men are never frightened; why I don't know what fear is," he had returned, half scoffingly, and yet proud to shield her, and to feel himself strong in his boy's strength.

Ah, he knew what fear meant now. He thought, with the cold clammy sweat of superstitious terror, of what the coffin lid would cover; while a child's lips blessed him--him, Andrew Calcott, dead, unloved, and unremembered--blessed him in her prayers.

God pardon his wasted, misused life, he groaned, and grant him one single fragment of opportunity more, and he should not be unremembered; and the flicker of a strange smile curved Andrew Calcott's lips as he silently registered this vow.

"Are you sleepy or tired, Uncle Andrew?" asked Emmie, rather awe-stricken by the long silence and closed eye-lids, and still more by the smile. "When you lay like that, so still and white," continued the child, "you reminded me of the figure of the old Crusader--a knight I think he was--on the tomb I saw once in church. Do you know what I was thinking about when I watched you?"

He shook his head.

"I was wondering if you felt afraid--to die, I mean."

"Well, child; what then?" regarding her strangely.

"I used to be terribly afraid, you know," creeping closer, and whispering confidentially. "When I sat alone in the old garret,--ah, the poor old garret; I don't hate it quite so much now,--and it got dark, and the silence had odd voices in it, I used to think about mamma and want to go to her; only I could not get to her without dying, and that troubled me."

"Hush, Emmie," interrupted her sister, softly; but Mr. Calcott waved her aside, and bade her let the child speak, and Queenie drew back again into the shade of the curtain.

"I used to sit for ever so long, and fancy how it would be. I fainted once; and then I thought it would be like that, only I was afraid I should feel terribly cold and lonely when I woke and found myself alone in a strange place, however beautiful it might be; and then Queenie took me to see that picture, and after that I did not mind at all."

"What picture, little one?"

"Of a girl, not much older than I, asleep with her arms so,"--crossing hers gravely over her breast,--"and sliding up a great pathway of light, just as I saw a little boat once floating in the moonlight. Fancy floating asleep between the stars, and right into heaven!"

A half-groan answered the child, but she was too absorbed to notice it.

"I never forgot the picture; it made me so happy to think of it. I shall not mind dying a bit now; I shall just cross my arms, as the girl did, and shut my eyes, and when I wake up I shall see mamma smiling at the door; and perhaps," finished the child solemnly, "He will come to me, instead of letting me go very far in the great dazzling place to find Him."

"Him!"

"Our Lord, you know; I shall want to see Him most. Uncle Andrew, when I say my prayers to-night I shall tell Him that you are afraid, and ask Him to let mamma be the first to meet you; and not a great splendid angel with wings, but just mamma, looking, oh, so beautiful! and smiling as she used to smile."

"God bless you, child; there, leave me; take her away, or I will not answer for myself. I have the pain again; those drops, quick! Oh, merciful heavens! only the boon of another day, one more day."

"Hush! you are only agitating yourself; you are not really worse," returned Queenie, tenderly, wiping the moisture from his forehead. "If you calm yourself the attack will pass off. Emmie, darling, you must leave him now; he is too tired to talk any more;" and the child gently obeyed, after kissing him timidly on the cheek.

"You must go too, I suppose," laying a delaying hand on her dress nevertheless.

"Yes; but it is only good-bye for a little while," returned Queenie, trying to speak cheerfully, but her eyes filling with tears. "When I come back we must have some more nice talks, and quiet cosy times together. You will miss me; I am sorry and grieved to think how you will miss me," finished the girl, faltering sadly over her words; "but Emmie and I will think of you and talk of you all the time we are away."

"Aye, do; but it is good-bye for all that," he returned, with a strange look at her. "You have meant well by me, I believe; thank you for all you have done for me."

"No, no; it has been so little, and it has made me happy to do it," exclaimed Queenie, and now the tears fairly brimmed over. As he held her hand in the weak, nerveless grasp of old age she stooped over him, with an infinite yearning of pity and sorrow, and kissed him softly on the forehead, as a daughter might have done.

In the years to come Queenie never regretted that kiss.