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Read Ebook: Harper's Young People November 7 1882 An Illustrated Weekly by Various
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Ebook has 347 lines and 19828 words, and 7 pages
with every one of rice. My lips and the inside of my mouth were so cracked with the heat that every motion of my jaws set them a-bleeding and gave me great pain."
As soon as he was a little recovered, his first care was for Mrs. Bremner, and on pointing out that she had some money about her, the natives were persuaded to take her off the ship. This was accomplished only a few hours before it parted in two. She was totally unable to walk, but her remaining rupees, joined to liberal promises, to be performed on her reaching her journey's end, procured her a litter, in which she was conveyed to Chittagong.
No woman probably ever went through such an experience and survived it as this unhappy lady. Mackay, having no money--for Mrs. Bremner had no more to give him--had to walk, and speedily broke down. The natives left him behind without a scruple. He fell in, however, with a party of Mugs, the chief of whom was full of human kindness. He washed Mackay's wounds, which were filled with sand and dirt, supplied him with rice, and endeavored to teach him how to make fire by rubbing two pieces of bamboo together. Mackay finally arrived at Chittagong, though in a pitiable condition.
In a postscript to this miserable story he says, "With respect to the fate of my companions in misfortune, Mrs. Bremner, having recovered her health and spirits, was afterward well married." So it seems that with time and courage one really does get over almost everything.
BUSY BIRDS.
BY MARCIA BRADBURY JORDAN.
A broad green marsh, with sullen pools Of brackish water here and there, With mounds of hay on wooden piles, And squares of yellow flowers like tiles, And swamp-rosemary everywhere.
The straight road stretches, gray with dust, From distant pine-trees to the hill; The warm breath of an autumn day Prevails, and with its languid sway Keeps every little song-bird still.
But all along the wire line That telegrams unnumbered brings, Small chirping birds are perched secure, With down-bent head and mien demure, And gray brown lightly folded wings.
And do you ask, dear girls and boys, What calls these flatterers from home, Why restlessly they care to roam Far from the foliage-guarded nest? A new idea has come to me; I wonder if you will agree To what I'm going to suggest.
When in some quite mysterious way A trifling fault strikes mamma's ears, I'm confident you must have heard Of that communicative bird Who's always telling all he hears.
A little bird told me, she says, Of what I never should suspect. Suppose these listening songsters light Upon the wires there in sight To get the latest news direct!
If they're the gossips of bird land, Reporters for the "Night-hawk Press," Then very likely they indulge In other meddling, and divulge The tiny secrets so few guess.
They hover near the open door In summer; past the eaves they dart, And very likely understand When any hidden mischief's planned, And straightway hasten to impart,
To those, they think it may concern, Their interesting items. Why, I seem to see their bright eyes shine, Their cunning heads sideways incline Inquisitively, full of joy.
The only way I know is this-- To always try to do so well That when the busy birds appear To carry secrets through the air, They won't have anything to tell Except those messages that bless Obedience and truthfulness.
NAN.
Begun in No. 157, HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE.
BY MRS. JOHN LILLIE,
Nan's visitor, Miss Rolf, left the little shop, and walked away in the winter's dusk up the main street, and down one of the more secluded streets, where the "upper ten" of Bromfield lived. Bromfield was a large dull town, full of factories and smoke, and had a general air of business and money-making. The houses on the pretty street to which Miss Rolf directed her steps seemed to be shut away from all the dust and noise of the town, and Mrs. Grange's gateway was the finest and most aristocratic-looking one in the row. Miss Rolf went in at the gate, past a pretty lawn dotted with cedars, to the side entrance of a long low stone house, within the windows of which lights were already twinkling. She had a curious, amused smile on her face as she went down the hall, and it had not faded when she entered the parlor fronting the garden and the lawn.
Three people were seated in the fire-light--an elderly lady with a pale sweet face, a tall boy of fifteen, and a gentleman whose face was like Miss Rolf's in regularity of feature, but much softer in expression.
In the luxurious room Miss Rolf looked much more in her place than in Mr. Rupert's butter shop, and if Nan could have seen her "second cousin Phyllis" there, she would have been more than ever certain that she belonged to those who had the money.
Miss Rolf was greeted by all three occupants of the room at once.
"Well, Phyllis?"--from the gentleman.
"Did you see her?"--this from the boy.
"Well, what happened?"--this from the lady.
Miss Rolf sank into one of the many easy-chairs, and, leaning back, began to draw off her long gloves.
"Yes, I saw her," she answered, smiling. "It was really very interesting. Quite like something in a story. There was the horrible little store, and Mrs. Rupert, a vulgar sort of woman; and then the little girl came in--dreadfully untidy and dowdy-looking, but really not at all so common as I feared. She has the hazel eyes every one admired so in her father."
"And did you tell her that her aunt Letitia wants her to go to Beverley?" said the boy, eagerly.
"No, I didn't," rejoined Miss Rolf. "I thought I'd do that when I went to-morrow. There was no time to discuss the matter. Besides, I wanted to see the child alone first."
"Why not send for her to come here?" Mrs. Grange said, gently.
"Not a bad idea," said Miss Rolf, sitting upright. "She might come to-morrow, instead of my going there."
"I can't help thinking Letitia will regret it," said the gentleman, who was Miss Rolf's father.
"Why should she, papa?" said the boy, quickly. "Surely it is only fair. Her father was left out of Cousin Harris's will just for a mere caprice, and why should Cousin Letty have everything, and this child nothing? I don't see the justice of that."
"But to remove her from a low condition; to place her among people she never knew--I am afraid it is unwise," said Mr. Rolf, shaking his head. "You don't understand it, Lance; I don't expect you to. Just wait, and see my words come true."
Lance, or Lancelot Rolf, laughed brightly. He seemed quite prepared to take the risks on Miss Letitia Rolf's venture. While Miss Rolf wrote her letter to little Nan, the boy watched her earnestly. He was intensely interested in this new-found cousin, and, had he known where to go, would certainly have paid a visit to the cheese-monger's family himself.
He would have found an excited little party had he done so, for by eight o'clock Mrs. Rupert had indulged in every possible speculation about Nan's future. Mr. Rupert, a tall, thin, weather-beaten man, had come in for tea, and was told of the visitor, and obliged to hear all Mrs. Rupert's ideas and hopes on the subject, while Nan herself was the only quiet member of the party. She sat at the tea-table, for once in her life very quiet and repressed. Just what she hoped or thought she could not have told you; but it seemed to her as if something like her old life with her parents might be coming back. Could it be she was to go away, and leave Bromfield, the cheeses and butter and eggs, her aunt's loud voice, Marian's little airs of superiority, and Phil's rough kindness, forever behind her?
"I don't suppose we'll know Nan, or she us, by to-morrow night," she said, with a shrug of the shoulders.
Early the next morning a man-servant from Mrs. Grange's brought a note for Nan, which she read in the little untidy parlor, surrounded by all the family. It was from Miss Rolf, requesting Nan to come as soon as possible to Mrs. Grange's house, and it produced a new flutter in the household. Nan was dressed by Mrs. Rupert and Marian in everything that either of the girls' scanty wardrobe possessed worth putting on for such a visit. Had she but known it, a much simpler toilet would have been far more appropriate and becoming, for her purple merino dress and Marian's red silk neck-tie, her "best" hat with its green feathers, and Mrs. Rupert's soiled lavender kid gloves, were a very dreadful combination. Nan, as she walked up Main Street, did not feel entirely satisfied with the costume herself. If her head had not been so dazed by what the Ruperts already called her "good fortune," she would have felt it all more keenly. As it was, she went into Mrs. Grange's gateway feeling herself in a dream, and wondering how and where she would wake up.
Nan was admitted by a very grave-looking man-servant, who, on hearing her name, led her down the softly carpeted hall, and upstairs to the door of a cozy little sitting-room, where Miss Rolf was waiting for her. The many luxuries of the room, its brightness and air of refinement, made Nan half afraid to go farther, and suddenly she seemed to feel the vulgarity of her own dress; but her "second cousin," Miss Rolf, smiled very pleasantly upon her from the window, and coming up to the little girl, kissed her affectionately.
Miss Rolf in the morning light, and in a long dress of pale gray woollen material, looked to Nan like nothing less than a princess. She was apparently about twenty one or two, with a fair face, soft waves of blonde hair, and eyes that looked to Nan like stars, they were so bright, and yet soft with all their sparkle. Nan scarcely noticed the imperious curve of her new cousin's pretty mouth or the disdainful pose of the head. She thought of nothing then but her beauty and grace and charming manners.
"Well, my dear," this dazzling princess said, "take off your hat and cloak, and sit down by the fire. I want to have a talk with you." Nan, very much subdued by everything she saw about her, obeyed, while Miss Rolf seated herself in a low chair, and looked at her little cousin critically.
"Now, Nan," she said, gravely, "do you know that your father would have been a very rich man but for an absurd quarrel with his elder brother?"
"I knew there was something," said Nan, who was afraid of her own voice.
"Well, then," continued Miss Rolf, "when your grandfather died, he left everything to his elder son and daughter. The son, your uncle Harris, is a confirmed invalid--indeed, he is not altogether right in his mind--but your aunt Letitia, your father's older sister, is strong and well, and they live together at Beverley. Miss Letitia has suddenly taken it into her head to hunt you up, and as my father and I were coming here on a visit, she asked me to try and find you."
Miss Rolf paused, and Nan, who sat very still, her hazel eyes fixed on the young lady's face, nodded, and said, in a sort of whisper, "Thank you."
"Your aunt," continued Phyllis, smiling pleasantly, "told me that I was to invite you, in her name, to come on a visit, to Beverley. Mind, Nan, don't get it into your head that it is more than a visit--unless you prove so nice and pleasant a little visitor that she will want you to stay always."
Nan's face broke into a smile that made her really pretty.
"I'll try and be pleasant," she said, brightly.
"So you would like to go?" said Miss Phyllis, looking at her earnestly. "Wouldn't you miss--the Ruperts?"
Nan's face flushed.
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