WE left Julia Dodd a district visitor. Working in a dense parish she learned the depths of human misery, bodily and mental.
She visited an honest widow, so poor that she could not afford a farthing dip, but sat in the dark. When friends came to see her they sometimes brought a candle to talk by.
She visited a cripple who often thanked God sincerely for leaving her the use of one thumb.
She visited a poor creature who for sixteen years had been afflicted with a tumour in the neck, and had lain all those years on her back with her head in a plate; the heat of a pillow being intolerable. Julia found her longing to go, and yet content to stay: and praising God in all the lulls of that pain which was her companion day and night.
But were I to enumerate the ghastly sights, the stifling loathsome odours, the vulgar horrors upon horrors this refined young lady faced, few of my readers would endure on paper for love of truth what she endured in reality for love of suffering humanity, and of Him whose servant she aspired to be.
Probably such sacrifices of selfish ease and comfort are never quite in vain; they tend in many ways to heal our own wounds: I won't say that bodily suffering is worse than mental; but it is realised far more vividly by a spectator. The grim heart-breaking sights she saw arrayed Julia's conscience against her own grief; the more so when she found some of her most afflicted ones resigned, and even grateful. "What," said she, "can they, all rags, disease and suffering, bow so cheerfully to the will of Heaven, and have I the wickedness, the impudence, to repine?"And then, happier than most district visitors, she was not always obliged to look on helpless, or to confine her consolations to good words. Mrs.
Dodd was getting on famously in her groove. She was high in the confidence of Cross and Co., and was inspecting eighty ladies, as well as working; her salary and profits together were not less than five hundred pounds a year, and her one luxury was charity, and Julia its minister.
She carried a good honest basket, and there you might see her Bible wedged in with wine and meat, and tea and sugar: and still, as these melted in her round, a little spark of something warm would sometimes come in her own sick heart. Thus by degrees she was attaining not earthly happiness, but a grave and pensive composure.
Yet across it gusts of earthly grief came sweeping often; but these she hid till she was herself again.
To her mother and brother she was kinder, sweeter, and dearer, if possible, than ever. They looked on her as a saint; but she knew better;and used to blush with honest shame when they called her so. "Oh don't, pray don't, she would say with unaffected pain. "Love me as if I was an angel; but do not praise me; that turns my eyes inward and makes me see myself. I am not a Christian yet, nor anything like one."Returning one day from her duties very tired, she sat down to take off her bonnet in her own room, and presently heard snatches of an argument that made her prick those wonderful little ears of hers which could almost hear through a wall. The two concluding sentences were a key to the whole dialogue.
"Why disturb her?" said Mrs. Dodd. "She is getting better of 'the Wretch;' and my advice is, say nothing: what harm can that do?""But then it is so unfair, so ungenerous, to keep anything from the poor girl that may concern her."At this moment Julia came softly into the room with her curiosity hidden under an air of angelic composure.
Her mother asked after Mrs. Beecher, to draw her into conversation. She replied quietly that Mrs. Beecher was no better, but very thankful for the wine Mrs. Dodd had sent her. This answer given, she went without any apparent hurry and sat by Edward, and fixed two loving imploring eyes on him in silence. Oh, subtle ***! This feather was to turn the scale, and make him talk unquestioned. It told. She was close to him too, and mamma at the end of the room.
"Look here, Ju," said he, putting his hands in his pockets, "we two have always been friends as well as brother and sister; and somehow it does not seem like a friend to keep things dark;" then to Mrs. Dodd: "She is not a child, mother, after all; and how can it be wrong to tell her the truth, or right to suppress the truth? Well then, Ju, there's an advertisement in the _'Tiser,_ and it's a regular riddle. Now mind, Idon't really think there is anything in it; but it is a droll coincidence, very droll; if it wasn't there are ladies present, and one of them a district visitor, I would say, d--d droll. So droll," continued he, getting warm, "that I should like to punch the advertiser's head.""Let me see it, dear," said Julia. "I dare say it is nothing worth punching about.""There," said Edward. "I've marked it."Julia took the paper, and her eye fell on this short advertisement:
AILEEN AROON.--DISTRUST APPEARANCES.
Looking at her with some anxiety, they saw the paper give one sharp rustle in her hands, and then quiver a little. She bowed her head over it, and everything seemed to swim. But she never moved: they could neither of them see her face, she defended herself with the paper. The letters cleared again, and, still hiding her face, she studied and studied the advertisement.
"Come, tell us what you think of it," said Edward. "Is it anything? or a mere coincidence?""It is a pure coincidence," said Mrs. Dodd, with an admirable imitation of cool confidence.
Julia said nothing; but she now rose and put both arms round Edward's neck, and kissed him fervidly again and again, holding the newspaper tight all the time.
"There," said Mrs. Dodd: "see what you have done.""Oh, it is all right," said Edward cheerfully. "The British fireman is getting hugged no end. Why, what is the matter? have you got the hiccough, Ju?""No; no! You are a true brother. I knew all along that he would explain all if he was alive: and he is alive." So saying she kissed the _'Tiser_violently more than once; then fluttered away with it to her own room ashamed to show her joy, and yet not able to hide it.
