CHAPTER XVII.

TOM'S SCHOLARSHIP.

"MOTHER, mother, I have got it! I have won the scholarship after all."

Tom burst in with the news about a week after the examination, and announced it to the empty room first, for his mother was upstairs with Elsie. She was still very poorly, but managed to come down and do what she could to help about the house, but by the afternoon was so tired that she had to go and lie down again. And Mrs. Winn had just gone up to tell her it was nearly tea time, and Tom would be home soon, when Tom announced himself and his success in true schoolboy fashion, without thinking of the effect it might have upon his sister.

The immediate result was all that Tom could desire. She came running downstairs before he could get up to them, and threw herself into his arms, shouting, "Oh, Tom! Tom! I am so glad, I am so glad."

And for a minute, he clasped her in his arms, and kissed her, in the fullness of his joy and relief. But instead of being content with this, Elsie clung to him more tightly, laughing and crying by turns, until Mrs. Winn came down and led her to a chair, when she became even worse, until Tom grew quite alarmed, for she was soon in hysterics of laughter and tears.

"Mother, whatever is the matter with her? She seemed all right when she came downstairs," said Tom, in a tone of alarm.

"Yes, yes; she was so glad, of course, at the good news, for we have had so little lately, but the suddenness of this has been too much for her. I am afraid she is very weak, or she would have borne it better," his mother added.

"But why should she be so weak?" asked Tom. "Of course, I know she has not been very well lately, and the disappointment, when I said I was afraid I had failed, upset her; but I thought the good news that has just come would make her well again."

"Yes, dear, it will, I daresay, when she can quite understand it, but the suddenness of it has upset her for the time."

"What is the matter?" asked another voice, at this point, and looking round, they saw Mary had come in by the back gate, which Tom had left open. "What is the matter with Elsie?" she asked, in some alarm. "I have just heard from mother that Tom has won the scholarship, and came to tell Elsie."

"Tom has told us, and it was such a sudden joy to Elsie, that it was more than she could bear," said the widow.

Elsie was more quiet now, but lay back in the chair looking very white and exhausted, though she managed to smile when Mary went and took her hand. "I am so glad," she feebly whispered.

"Mrs. Winn, she must be very ill to be so faint as this, just because of hearing good news suddenly," said Mary, for Elsie had closed her eyes, and looked almost lifeless, as she lay back in the chair.

"Yes, she is very poorly, I know," replied Mrs. Winn, and she did not look much better than Elsie herself as she spoke, for what would become of them if Elsie was really going to be ill? She put the thought away from her as too terrible for contemplation. "It is only a bad cold hanging about her, I hope," she added, as Mary stood and looked at the helpless girl. She tried to rouse her, but it was of no use.

Elsie only shivered as if cold to her bones, and at last Tom and Mrs. Winn carried her upstairs again, and her mother resorted to the same remedies that had been used when she had the first shock.

Meanwhile Mary said, "Tom, I want you to go with me to look-out for Dr. Perceval. He will be in the village, I expect, this afternoon, and my father would like to see him on business, and I want to see him too; but I should not be able to walk so fast as you can."

"No, indeed, that is not to be expected," said Tom. "It is wonderful that you can walk as well as you can."

"Ah, I should not, if it had not been for Elsie," answered Mary. "There, don't stop to talk about it now, Tom, but run on to the corner and stop Dr. Perceval, if you see him coming, or tell him to come and meet me here."

Tom was only just in time to catch the doctor as he drove past in his gig, and he went at once to meet Mary. She was still near the cottage, and when she saw him she said, "You are wanted here, doctor. Elsie is very ill; will you come and see her?"

"But Tom Winn said you wanted me."

"Yes, I want you to see Elsie, for I don't believe they know how bad she really is; and then my father would like to see you, I know, afterwards."

"Very well, I will go and see Elsie at once; but you must go home, for you are looking tired. Go home and lie down for the rest of the day, or the back will be bad again, and I know that would be a disappointment to everybody. I will call and let you know how your friend is, if you are an obedient girl," said the doctor, smiling.

"I will go home at once," said Mary, and the doctor went on to the cottage.

He found the back gate open, and went round to the kitchen entrance, and a survey of the room gave him a clue as to what was the matter upstairs. The tea things were set, and about a quarter of a loaf was on the table; Bobby and baby were standing close to it, and both were picking crumbs from it, and eating them with the greatest relish. There was a tiny scrap of fire in the grate, but the range was screwed up to its narrowest capacity, telling of such rigid economy that could not be far from actual starvation.

He knocked on the stairs, and called "Mrs. Winn," to let her know that he was there; for he was not sure from Mary's manner whether he had been sent for by the widow or not, and he did not want to give her a shock by walking up unannounced.

"I hear your daughter is very poorly. May I come up and see her?" he said, when he heard her footsteps on the stairs.

"Oh yes, certainly," said Mrs. Winn; and the next minute the doctor was at Elsie's bedside.

Standing in the cold little bedroom, looking down at the thin white face, the doctor was at his wit's end to know what to advise the poor mother to do. But at last he said, as cheerfully as he could, "I will send her some medicine as soon as I get back, and she had better stay in bed for a day or two until she gets stronger."

Then he beckoned Mrs. Winn to follow him downstairs, and he led the way to the parlour; for Tom and the children were in the kitchen, the little ones quarrelling as to who should stand in front of the handful of fire.

"Now, Mrs. Winn, what is to be done?" said the doctor, facing round and closing the door when the widow came in. She looked at him as if she did not understand what he meant. "You know it is not medicine that your little daughter needs, but food, and plenty of it. Now, you have made a brave struggle to get work here, I know, but Fairfield is not the best place in the world for a stranger, and I am afraid you have had a hard time of it; but now the question is, what are you going to do? Have you no friends who would be willing to help you a little, if it was only for a year or two, until Tom was able to earn some money? I hear he has won a scholarship."

The widow felt choked. All that the doctor said was true enough she knew, but she did not like to hear it put into such plain language.

"You do not think Elsie is very ill?" she managed to ask at last.

"Very ill!" repeated the doctor. "Why, you can see for yourself that she cannot live long if there is not a change in her condition very soon. Think now, Mrs. Winn, whether you have no friend or relative to whom you can apply. I tell you the girl's life depends upon it. She has borne her share of the struggle as long as she can, and borne it bravely. But her power of endurance is exhausted, for she is but a child after all; and so, if you do not wish to see her die of starvation, you should at once seek help from friends or relatives. Surely you or your husband must have somebody who would be willing to do something for you."

"I have a sister," gasped Mrs. Winn, "but I have not seen or heard from her for years. Her husband is a very proud man, and I offended both of them when I married."

"Well, that is over and done with now, and you are left a widow with these children dependent upon you. Surely, if your sister knew how you were placed, she would deem it her duty to do what she could to help you."

"Perhaps she would. I have never thought of asking her, for I never thought I should come to such a pass as this," and poor Mrs. Winn burst into tears, and sobbed hysterically.

"There, there, you must forgive me if I seemed to speak harshly. You must bear up, you know, or else we shall have the little maid fretting, and that would never do."

Mr. Perceval spoke as kindly and tenderly as possible; but Mrs. Winn was feeling weak and spent, and could not stay her tears now she once began to cry.

"Can you tell me your sister's name, and where, she lives, and I will send for her to come to you?"

But Mrs. Winn could only shake her head. "I must look for it," she murmured.

"Well, mind you have it ready for me by the time I come to-morrow. Now, put away all false pride in the matter, and try to think that your sister would be glad to help you, if she only knew that you were in such straits. For if we will not let our friends know that we are in need of their assistance, how are they to do their duty? Try to think of it this way, Mrs. Winn,—that by keeping your trouble to yourself, as you are doing, you are denying to your sister a right she possesses to be your helper; that is, of course, if she is likely to be in a position to help you."

"Oh, yes; her husband was a wealthy man. That was how the trouble began between us. She made what the world called a good match. Her husband had plenty of money when she married, while I—well—everybody said, I married beneath me, because my dear husband was only a clerk."

"Ah, well, there might have been faults on both sides, Mrs. Winn. Your friends might think you were wilfully rushing into poverty."

"That's what they said," interrupted the widow; "and that is why I have kept out of their way. I did not want them to know that we got a little poorer every year."

"Of course not; that was quite right. And while your husband lived, and could work for you, you did not need their help. But now, for your children's sake, it is your duty to overcome this angry feeling, and the pride that makes you wish to hide your poverty from those whose duty it is to help you. That is how you should look at it, Mrs. Winn. You have a brave little daughter, who did not shrink from doing her duty, when she knew what it was; though it must have been a hard pinch to give up that scholarship, and all it meant to her. Now she has done this, you should do your duty for her, and ask this wealthy sister to do hers. For if she has the means, she ought to help you, because you are her sister, and need it; and both ought to forgive and forget the past, with its pride and bitterness, and all that grew out of that, and the wilfulness too."

Mrs. Winn did not know herself how strong this pride and resentment was in her, until after the doctor had gone; and she went upstairs and unlocked her desk, to find a letter that had her sister's address. Then, as it seemed to her, the love and reverence she felt for her husband's memory, rose up to forbid her writing to one who never understood his worth, or spoke a kind word of him. And she almost resolved to tear up the letter, and put it out of her power, or Dr. Perceval's either, to let her sister know the straits to which she was reduced.

But just then Elsie called her from the next room, and she ran in to see what she wanted. "Oh, mother, I should like a cup of coffee and a piece of nice brown buttered toast," said the girl.

"Coffee and buttered toast, Elsie," said her mother.

"Yes, I am so tired of tea. You see we have to make it over and over again with the same tea leaves, that there is no taste in it."

Poor Elsie had eaten very little for the last week. She had refused everything they had offered her, and now this cry for coffee and brown buttered toast wrung her mother's heart.

"You shall have it, dear; you shall have it," she said. "I will get some for you very soon."

And she went downstairs and wrote a few lines to her sister, telling her that her husband was dead, and her children almost starving; and then Tom was sent with it to the post. She never dreamed but that she would receive a reply and some money in the course of a day or two, unless her sister came to her, which she might do.

But the next day passed, and the next, and there was no postman called at the cottage. In vain Mrs. Winn watched and waited by the window for him, and then at the gate. The postman went past without stopping; and when she asked if he had no letter for her, he said with a shake of the head, as though she was a child, "None to-day."

The doctor went from Mrs. Winn's to the schoolmaster's cottage to see Mary, and hear all about Tom's scholarship, for he had only heard the bare fact from Tom himself as he stopped the gig.

"I am very glad to hear it, very glad," said the doctor; "for now the lad will be no expense to his mother, and be in the way of learning a good business."

"Yes, and just the very one he likes best of all," said Mary. "It is a better scholarship than Elsie's, and Tom won't have to give it up as Elsie did."

"No, indeed, I hope not," said the doctor. "Now let us hear a little about yourself, Miss Mary," he added.

"She is getting on wonderfully well," said the schoolmaster; while Mrs. Murray said, in a quieter tone, "She certainly seems better in health than she has been for a long time."

"I can walk as far as Mrs. Winn's without feeling a bit tired," said Mary.

"Very well, let that be the limit of your walks for the present, and rest a bit there and have a chat with your friend before you come back; that is the best advice I can give you. I have told Elsie she must stay in bed a few days; but you can help her as she helped you, and by-and-bye we shall see what we shall see," added the doctor, for he had no doubt that help would speedily be sent to the widow from her wealthy sister. And he did not hear for some days that no answer came to the widow's letter.