I put up my trembling little hand to clasp hers
or to beg her pardon with what earnestness I might, but withdrew it as
she looked at me, and laid it on my fluttering heart. She raised me, sat
in her chair, and standing me before her, said slowly in a cold, low voice
—I see her knitted brow and pointed finger— Your mother, Esther, is ‟
your disgrace, and you were hers. The time will come—and soon enough
—when you will understand this better and will feel it too, as no one
save a woman can. I have forgiven her”—but her face did not relent
— the wrong she did to me, and I say no more of it, though it was ‟
greater than you will ever know—than any one will ever know but I, the
sufferer. For yourself, unfortunate girl, orphaned and degraded from the
first of these evil anniversaries, pray daily that the sins of others be not
visited upon your head, according to what is written. Forget your mother
and leave all other people to forget her who will do her unhappy child
that greatest kindness. Now, go!”
She checked me, however, as I was about to depart from her—so
frozen as I was!—and added this, Submission, self-denial, diligent work, ‟
are the preparations for a life begun with such a shadow on it. You are
different from other children, Esther, because you were not born, like
them, in common sinfulness and wrath. You are set apart.”
I went up to my room, and crept to bed, and laid my doll’s cheek
against mine wet with tears, and holding that solitary friend upon my
bosom, cried myself to sleep. Imperfect as my understanding of my
sorrow was, I knew that I had brought no joy at any time to anybody’s
heart and that I was to no one upon earth what Dolly was to me.
Dear, dear, to think how much time we passed alone together
afterwards, and how often I repeated to the doll the story of my birthday
and confided to her that I would try as hard as ever I could to repair the
fault I had been born with (of which I confessedly felt guilty and yet
innocent) and would strive as I grew up to be industrious, contented,
and kind-hearted and to do some good to some one, and win some loveto myself if I could. I hope it is not self-indulgent to shed these tears as I
think of it. I am very thankful, I am very cheerful, but I cannot quite help
their coming to my eyes.
There! I have wiped them away now and can go on again properly.
I felt the distance between my godmother and myself so much more
after the birthday, and felt so sensible of filling a place in her house
which ought to have been empty, that I found her more difficult of
approach, though I was fervently grateful to her in my heart, than ever. I
felt in the same way towards my school companions; I felt in the same
way towards Mrs. Rachael, who was a widow; and oh, towards her
daughter, of whom she was proud, who came to see her once a fortnight!
I was very retired and quiet, and tried to be very diligent.
One sunny afternoon when I had come home from school with my
books and portfolio, watching my long shadow at my side, and as I was
gliding upstairs to my room as usual, my godmother looked out of the
parlour-door and called me back. Sitting with her, I found—which was
very unusual indeed—a stranger. A portly, important-looking
gentleman, dressed all in black, with a white cravat, large gold watch
seals, a pair of gold eye-glasses, and a large seal-ring upon his little
finger.
This,” said my godmother in an undertone, is the child.” Then she ‟ ‟
said in her naturally stern way of speaking, This is Esther, sir.” ‟
The gentleman put up his eye-glasses to look at me and said, Come ‟
here, my dear!” He shook hands with me and asked me to take off my
bonnet, looking at me all the while. When I had complied, he said, Ah!” ‟
and afterwards Yes!” And then, taking off his eye-glasses and folding ‟
them in a red case, and leaning back in his arm-chair, turning the case
about in his two hands, he gave my godmother a nod. Upon that, my
godmother said, You may go upstairs, Esther!” And I made him my ‟
curtsy and left him.
It must have been two years afterwards, and I was almost fourteen,
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