Hollowmell

CHAPTER VIII.

It was a goodly sight in Minnie's eyes to see them come in—the miners and their wives and children—all looking clean and respectable, and many of them even looking very well-dressed, as indeed they could all well afford to be, if they had not been in the habit of taking their earnings to the public-house in preference to any other place.

Pat Malone was there and all his children, accompanied by Molly Gray, who had been promoted to the dignity of his housekeeper since the death of his wife.

In the morning Minnie had informed her father of the expected presence of some of the young ladies' parents and friends, and Mr. Kimberly suggested the propriety of inviting these to dinner in his own house, at a later hour. This proposal, however, was met by Minnie with decided disapproval, who requested instead that they should be invited to sit down with the company.

"I don't wish the people to think they are a show," she declared, "and that all this is merely for the amusement of us and our friends—they must either dine with my people or stay out of the hall till dinner is over."

Every one accepted the invitation—in fact, Mrs. Cameron declared that for her part, she had come for that purpose and no other, and moreover, she believed they had all come with a similar intention.

"Now, my good friends," said Mrs. Cameron, as they prepared to enter the banqueting-hall, "don't sit all together at one end of the table, and look exclusive. Mix yourselves up among the company and make yourselves sociable, and don't, whatever you do, seem to be trying to set them a good example, in the way of eating, or you'll spoil their pleasure and their appetites too." After which advice, delivered with much energy, she accepted Mr. Kimberly's arm and proceeded into the hall, followed by the other guests.

It was a day, never to be forgotten in the annals of Hollowmell, and for years its inhabitants talked about it, and dated events from it.

The dinner was a great success, and although there was no liquor of an intoxicating kind in the bill of fare, there were many healths proposed, and toasts drunk in the harmless beverages which were upon the table in abundance.

Minnie's and Mabel's healths were drunk with much enthusiasm, as the original inaugurators of the good work, and then the health of all the young ladies together, which was responded to on their behalf by Mr. Kimberly who expressed the great delight he experienced in reviewing the fruit of such a successful venture, and congratulated his workmen on having for their champions such a bevy of fair reformers, which remark was wildly applauded by the whole assemblage.

Mr. Kimberly and Mrs. Cameron having likewise received a similar tribute, the company rose, and proceeded to entertain themselves with general conversation while the remains of the feast were cleared away, and the hall reduced to an orderly condition.

Then came the distribution of prizes which occupied a considerable time, Mr. Kimberly saying a few words to each youthful prize-taker, as the various articles were handed to him or her by Mrs. Cameron.

After that there were games for the children, into which many of the older people entered with great spirit and enjoyment, and as an appropriate climax the service of strawberries and cream.

When it had been disposed of the company relapsed into silence and a sort of expectant hush fell upon it which it was difficult to account for, until one of the miners rose to make a speech.

He floundered about a good deal, and didn't exactly know what to say, and at length, in a sort of desperation, determined to forego the pleasure of indulging in a harangue, and went straight to the root of the business by producing from his pocket two small boxes, and presented them in the name of the Hollowmell miners to Miss Mabel Chartres and Miss Minnie Kimberly, as a mark of their respect and gratitude.

These, when opened, were found to contain each an exquisite coral and gold necklet, which had been bought by the miners themselves, who, of their own accord, had subscribed the money for their purchase.

The two girls were completely overcome, to such an extent, indeed, that they could scarcely collect their ideas sufficiently to beg Mr. Kimberly to thank the donors for them, which duty he performed, however, very happily—promising for them, at the instigation of Charlie, that they would wear the gifts, so gracefully and unexpectedly bestowed upon them, incessantly, and would ever have the pleasantest associations connected with them.

Soon after their guests departed, and the Kimberlys went home.

Archie, Ned, and Minnie were in the parlour discussing the events of the day, and regaling each other with their respective experiences as they were in the habit of doing.

"I am sure there is something serious the matter with Mabel," said Archie, suddenly, "did you not notice something strange about her to-day?"

"She was very tired, you know how little is sufficient to tire her, and the excitement was too much for her," said Minnie.

"I don't think that was all," returned Archie, then suddenly abandoning the subject he inquired where Charlie might be.

"He's with papa in the study," replied Minnie. "I saw him go in a few minutes ago."

"Then I think I'll go and find Seymour. I want somebody to talk to, and Ned looks too lazy even to wink."

"Seymour isn't back yet," drawled Ned, speaking solely for the purpose of disproving Archie's accusation, "he went off with Miss Mabel, and a precious while he has been doing that quarter of a mile."

"Oh, there he is!" exclaimed Minnie, as he passed the window, and a moment later he entered the room looking very grave indeed.

"What's the matter?" inquired all three almost in a breath.

"It's Mabel," he replied slowly. "She is in great danger, the doctor thinks she has burst a blood-vessel, but cannot be quite sure yet."

"But how did it happen?" cried Minnie, "she was all right when she left here. She did not feel ill at all—only tired."

"The doctor says it must have been the excitement, but I am certain he is wrong there. I know more than he does." The last words were spoken in a voice too low to reach any one but Minnie.

"I know," she said, "she told me about it to-day."

"But you don't know half though—you don't know the terrible state of mind she's been in for months—it may have been years for aught I know, the wearing strain of incessant strife between feeling and reason going on beneath every other interest and occupation. It was little wonder, I think, that it should tell on her thus at last."

Minnie listened in silence while Seymour spoke, and then she said in a low, almost inaudible voice:

"Why did Mabel keep this from me?" And without waiting for a reply went out and sought her own room.

CHAPTER IX.

Minnie was somewhat astonished by the question, and especially by the abruptness of her father's manner of putting it, but she gave a clear and concise account of her friendship with Mona, and of her previous acquaintance with her in Miss Marsden's school.

"Then you have only been friends for a very short time," was his comment when she had finished.

"Only for a few weeks, papa," she replied.

"And has she never mentioned to you since the date of your friendship her former acquaintance with your brother Charlie?"

"No, she has not, but I am aware of it notwithstanding," confessed she, wondering more than ever.

"Well, it seems they became acquainted in London at the house of my friend Mrs. Cameron—Mr. Cameron's sister it turns out, although I was not aware of the circumstance until to-day."

Here Mr. Kimberly paused, looked at Minnie with an amused expression for a minute or two, and then went on—

"You look rather bewildered, and now I come to think of it, I dare say it is rather a bewildering thing to be treated like an old woman of fifty. I need scarcely have told you of this so soon—especially as you will hear of it soon enough from lips fitter to speak of it than mine, but one always feels the need of a confidante, however old he may be and young she may be."

"And I shall be prouder of nothing than of being yours," she returned, stroking his grey hair lovingly.

"Not even of the Presidentship of the Hollowmell Mission?" enquired he incredulously.

"O, Mabel is that," she replied, her face clouding again as the thought flashed across her mind that perhaps Mabel would be that no more.

"Well, the position of arbitrator between discontented miners and their employers," he suggested, anxious to divert her thoughts from the gloomy subject he had unwittingly touched on.

"Not even of that," she declared, brightening a little. "Besides, all the girls have a share in that—but to our confidences again. What of Charlie and Mona?"

"I suppose you couldn't guess?"

"I am sure I couldn't," she asserted. Then added laughingly, "unless they've fallen in love with each other—by-the-way," she continued, growing suddenly serious again; "that isn't as altogether an improbable think as it looks—I remember coming to the conclusion that Charlie had fallen in love with her writing, and thinking that it was almost equivalent to falling in love with herself."

"Well, that is just what has happened to them—though I rather think it happened before the creation of your ingenious theory. It appears they had some misunderstanding, or quarrel or something of that nature, before Miss Cameron left London, and they had never met again till he saw her along with you decorating the hall down there."

"And they've made it up!" exclaimed Minnie, clapping her hands in her delight.

"Yes, it is settled—the girl's only nineteen, and in my opinion too young. But her father doesn't seem to think so."

"O, that's what he was here for then," remarked Minnie, "I met him as I was going up to Mabel's."

"Yes," replied her father, smiling. "He seems to have fully made up his mind on one point."

"What point?"

"That there is nothing and nobody worth considering in comparison with his daughter, and in that conviction his wife and he seem to be completely at one."

Minnie laughed.

"I know somebody who is pretty nearly as decided in his opinions on a similar subject," she hinted.

"Come, now, not quite," protested he.

"Well, he's a great deal older than Mr. Cameron, and consequently ought to have a great deal more sense."

"And his daughter snubs him too much—I wonder if Miss Mona has as sharp a tongue?"

"I would advise you not to rouse it," was Minnie's reply, as she flitted away.

Next day the mid-summer holidays commenced, much to Minnie's joy, for now she could sit by her friend many hours during the day, cheering her in her intervals of consciousness, and watching and soothing her at other times—thereby not only greatly aiding her slow recovery, but also rendering her aunt inestimable service in her present harassing position.

Mabel's great danger did not lie so much in the ruptured blood-vessel, as in a sharp attack of brain fever, which had followed upon her late excitement, and the slackening of the strain she had borne so long.

She was yet very far from being out of danger, but there was scarcely so much need for apprehension, and even such a slight crumb of comfort was eagerly caught at.

Minnie was sitting beside Mabel's bed on the third day of the holidays, when she heard a step outside the door. The handle was turned noiselessly, and Mona came in on tip-toes, fearful of creating the least sound.

"Miss Chartres didn't tell me you were here," she said, her voice trembling. "How is she?"

"I think the fever isn't quite so bad—she hasn't been wandering so much this afternoon."

Mabel had lain almost motionless all this time, but now her pale lips began to move, although for some moments no sound issued from them. Then she began to speak in a voice so thin and weak that Mona could hardly recognize it.

For some time they could make nothing of her words, and only tried to soothe her, but after a while it became clear to them that she was repeating something which sounded like poetry. Still they could make nothing out of it, for sometimes several words would be lost from a line, and occasionally a whole line would be repeated by those pale lips without a sound.

At length Minnie caught a whole line. What the words were which went before she could not tell, but the words she caught came clear and distinct:

"It went up Single, Echoless,—'My God I am deserted.'"

The words "Single, Echoless" were uttered with a strange sort of triumphant emphasis which struck both the girls, and then the feeble voice went on more brokenly even than before with a few lines more, and then suddenly ceased.

Minnie repeated the line over.

"I wonder what it is from," she said. "I am sure I have read it often, but I cannot remember where."

"I can't tell just at this minute either," remarked Mona, "I know it perfectly well though. If we could only get hold of it, reading it to her might do her any amount of good."

"That is just what I was thinking about," returned Minnie, "I wish we could find it."

"I've got it!" exclaimed Mona, at last, with a suppressed shriek of triumph. "It's in Mrs. Browning."

He looked very grave indeed on this occasion which was his third visit that day. A crisis, he said, would probably take place that night; he promised to come again before the time he expected it would occur; but held but very little hope as to its ultimate issue.

When he arrived, Mabel was in a state of high delirium, and raved in a way which made Minnie pale with terror. After about half-an-hour of wild, disconnected raving, she became a little quieter, and at last settled down to the old habit of repeating verses—verses which Minnie now recognised as belonging to Mrs. Browning's poem on Cowper's Grave.

She drew the doctor out into an adjoining room and explained to him the idea which had occurred to her in connection with Mabel's constant repetition of this poem, asking if he did not think it might have some good effect.

"Well," he said, "I must tell you plainly that I am afraid it cannot have any good effect, but at any rate it cannot have any bad effect, and she is only wearing herself out more quickly as it is."—"Yes," he continued more kindly, noticing for the first time how young she was, and how terribly in earnest, "read it to her by all means. It will do you good, and it cannot do her harm."

She thanked him with tears in her eyes, and they both went back into the sick-chamber together.

She had brought the book with her, so, turning at once to the place, she began to read in a low, soft tone, with slow and measured accents, well-suited to the subject and the measure as well as the purpose she had in view.

At first it produced no visible effect, but she gradually became quieter as Minnie proceeded and the hopes of the watchers rose. She did not attempt to follow it at all till the line Minnie had caught so distinctly was reached, and then she repeated it after her in the same tone as before, and with the same triumphant emphasis on the words, "Single, Echoless."

Then she went on with the lines following along with Minnie, her voice growing gradually weaker and weaker as she proceeded:—

"It went up from the holy lips amid His lost creation
That of the lost no one should use those words of desolation—
That earth worst frenzies, marring hope, might mar not hope's fruition."

Here her voice died away, and she lay back with a long sigh of content.

"She's conscious!" exclaimed Minnie in a whisper as she closed the book, "and the fever's gone. You said she would be safe—" and she stood with bated breath while the doctor bent over her.

"Yes, the fever is gone," replied the doctor, "and she is safe—for ever."

For some time Minnie could not bear to go near Hollowmell, so strongly did its associations with her lost friend move her. Her father took her away altogether for a while, and when she returned, though her grief was in no way lessened, it was so much softened that she could resume her work with a holier and tenderer interest in it, since it had been shared by one who was now an angel of light.

There was also much sorrow felt among the inhabitants of Hollowmell, for Mabel had made for herself many friends there, and her quiet goodness made more impression than much of the activity which characterised the greater number of the young ladies.

No one had thought very much about what Mabel was doing; the girls had shown deference to her mainly because Minnie did so; and so none knew how much good she had accomplished until it was too late to give her credit for it. Many of them, too, were astonished to find what a hold she had upon their hearts until death loosened it, and left in its stead a cord of love wherewith to draw them nearer Heaven.