"I hoped so to give her a better, brighter life. I left a little work for her in the hands of a friend, and it came to naught. But perhaps-G.o.d"s love _must_ be wiser than our human plans, and his love is greater. We must rest content with that. But she has been an evangel to me."
Miss Mary bathed the face and hands of her invalid in some fragrant water. She had considered Dil a rather dull and uninteresting child at first; but her pitiful story that had come to light in fragments, her pa.s.sionate love for her little "hurted" sister, and her wild dream of going to heaven, had moved them all immeasurably. The cheerful sweetness would have deceived any but practised eyes, and even now Dil seemed buoyed up by her delicious happiness.
"Won"t they come back?" she asked presently, with a touch of longing in her voice.
"Yes, dear."
"I"d like him to stay."
"Yes, he shall stay."
The household had not been disturbed by the near approach of the awesome visitant. The children had not missed her, since she had brought no gayety to them, but rather grudged Miss Virginia to her. They were at their supper now. How easily they had forgotten the hardships of their lives!
Virginia and John Travis entered presently. The soft summer night fell about them, as they sat watching the frail little body, so wasted that its vitality was fast ebbing. She talked in quaint, disjointed s.n.a.t.c.hes, piecing the year"s story together with a pathos almost heart-breaking in its very simplicity. Her trust in him had been so perfect.
"I don"t know what"s "come o" mother," she said, after one of the silences. "But Bess "n" me"ll tell the Lord Jesus "bout her, "n" mebbe he can do somethin" that"ll keep her "way from Mrs. MacBride"s, "cause she wasn"t so bad before she took to goin" there. I"ve been so feared of her all the time, but I don"t feel feared no more. Bess said we shouldn"t when you came back, and wisht your name had been Mr.
Greatheart. We liked him so. But they"ve all gone wrong in Barker"s Court. Oh, can"t some one set thim right an" straight, an" bring thim outen the trouble an" drinkin" an" beatin", an" show thim the way? It"s jes" like thim folks leavin" the City of Destruction. An" oh, we"ve all come out of it, Owny an" little Dan. Maybe mother"ll find the way."
"We"ll find her and try to show her," said John Travis, with a voice full of emotion.
"Oh, will you?" There was a satisfying delight in her tone. "An" the boys? If some one"d look after thim, I think I"d like to go to Bess. Do you b"l"eve the Lord Jesus would come an" take me if I ast him? Seems so long since I had Bess."
"I think he will," Travis said, in a tone he tried to keep steady.
"I ain"t pritty, like Bess, an" I can"t sing."
"But you will sing there. And you will love the Saviour. That is all he asks."
"I can"t seem to understand how he could be so good to poor folks. An" I don"t see why they ain"t all jes" wild to love Him. Tell me some more "bout his comin" down from heaven to help thim."
With the little hand in his, he told the wider, greater story of the Saviour"s love,-how he had come to redeem, to sanctify all future suffering in his own, to give himself a ransom. And even now Travis"s mind reverted to the hours of discussion with his cousin. Ah, how could he have brought bread to that famishing soul, that had fed so long on the husks of the world"s wisdom, but for the afternoon with the children, the meeting with the Lord Jesus in the way.
The moon came up and flooded the room with softened splendor, the summer night was fragrant with exquisite odors. Almost it seemed as if the very heavens were opened. The wide eyes were full of wordless rapture, and a great content shone in the ethereal face.
Then Dilsey moved about restlessly.
"My little Dil, what can I do for you?" he asked with tender solicitude.
A strange shudder seemed to run over her. Was it a premonition?
"I wish you"d take me in your strong arms "n" hold me. "Pears if I"d like to be clost to some one, just sheltered like. An" you an" Miss Virginia sing "bout "The rivers of delight.""
John Travis lifted her up. She was so small and light; a child who was never to know any earthly joy or hope of girlhood, who would learn all the blessedness of life in the world to come. Virginia folded the soft blanket about her, and her face rested against the shoulder that would have been glad to bear a far heavier burthen for her. He took the cool little hands in his, and noted the fluttering, feeble pulse, the faint, irregular beating of the tired heart against his.
Sometimes both voices came to a pause through emotion. He remembered the other scene in the stuffy little room, and could see Bess"s enraptured face.
Then Dilsey Quinn gave a little start, and raised her head, turning her eyes to him.
"I c"n understand it all now," she said joyously. "The Lord Jesus wanted me to wait till you come back, so I could tell Bess. An", Miss Virginia, she"ll be so glad to know who gave the wild roses to Patsey. An" you promised her-you"d come. We was all goin" to heaven-together-"
The head dropped. The heart was still. The labor of the hands was done.
The slow brain had the wisdom of the stars. But her eyes still kept the subtle glory; a radiance not of this world shone in her face as she left the night behind her and stepped into the dawn of everlasting life.
"She has seen Bess."
Then John Travis laid her reverently on the cot, and sprinkled a baptism of roses over her. The two left behind, clasped hands, their whole lives sanctified by the brave sweetness and devotion of this one gone up to G.o.d.
No one told the "little mothers" that one of their number lay up-stairs in Miss Mary"s room waxen white and still in her last sleep. They sang and played and ran and shouted, perhaps jangled as well. Death often met them in the byways of the slums, but in this land of enchantment they were not looking for it. Their holidays were brief enough; their days of toil and deprivation stretched out interminably. How could they sorrow for this pale, quiet little girl who had not even played with them?
In the afternoon John Travis brought up Patsey and Owen, who were stunned by the unlooked-for tidings. Dil had on her white frock, Patsey"s gift, that had been both pride and pleasure to him.
Owen looked at her steadily and in great awe, winking hard to keep back the tears. Patsey wiped his away with his coat-sleeve.
"Ther" wasn"t ever no girl like Dil Quinn," he said brokenly. "She was good as gold through and through. n.o.body never loved any one as she loved Bess. Seems like she couldn"t live a"thout her. O mister, do you think ther"s railly a heaven as they preach "bout? Fer if ther" is, Dilly Quinn an" Bess are angels, sure as sure. An" Owen, we"ve got to be tip top, jes" "s if she was watchin" us all the time. But it"s norful to think she can"t never come down home to us."
He leaned over and kissed the thin hands, and then sobbed aloud. But all his life long the tender remembrance followed him.
In a corner of the pretty burying-ground where they laid her, there is a simple marble shaft, with this quaint, old-fashioned inscription:-
"Sacred to the Memory of BESS AND DILSEY QUINN."
For, even if Bess is elsewhere in an unknown grave, her unfailing and sweetest remembrance is here with Dilsey.
And in one home in the city, made beautiful by love and earnest endeavor, and a wide, kindly charity that never wearies in the Master"s work for the poor, the sinful, and the unthankful, there hangs a picture that Patsey Muldoon adores. It is Dilsey Quinn idealized, as happiness and health might have made her. The sunrise gleam in her eyes stirs one with indescribable emotion. She looks out so bravely sweet, so touched and informed by the most sacred of all knowledges. The high courage is illumined by the love that considered not itself; the tenderness seems to say, "to the uttermost," through pain and toil and discouragements; never quenched in the darkest of times, but, even when blown about by adverse winds, still lighting some soul. The face seems ripened to bloom and fragrance, and speaks of a heavenly ministry begun when the earthly was laid down.
And the old story comes true oftener than we think. Two put in the garden to keep and dress it, to watch over the little wild roses of adverse circ.u.mstances, crowded out of even the s.p.a.ce and the sun needed to grow rightfully, out of the freshness and dew of happiness, yet making their way up from noisome environments, and struggling for the light and human care to fit them for the Garden of the Lord.
And these two, who go on their way in reunited love, understand the mystery of Dilsey Quinn"s short life, and that the strange fine threads that connect us here are so many chords of the greater harmony of human love in its redemption. All their days will be hallowed by its tender remembrance, their work more fervent, their faith more enduring.
And thus it came to pa.s.s that the little bruised flowers of the slums lived not in vain.