The Wide, Wide World

The Wide, Wide World

Susan Warner

Breaking the News.

"Mamma, what was that I heard papa saying to you this morning about his lawsuit?"

"I cannot tell you just now. Ellen, pick up that shawl and spread it over me."

"Mamma! — are you cold in this warm room?"

"A little, — there, that will do. Now, my daughter, let me be quiet a while — don't disturb me."

There was no one else in the room. Driven thus to her own

resources, Ellen betook herself to the window, and sought

amusement there. The prospect without gave little promise of

it. Rain was falling, and made the street and everything in it

look dull and gloomy. The foot-passengers plashed through the

water, and the horses and carriages plashed through the mud;

gaiety had forsaken the side-walks, and equipages were few,

and the people that were out were plainly there only because

they could not help it. But yet Ellen, having seriously set

herself to study everything that passed, presently became

engaged in her occupation; and her thoughts travelling

dreamily from one thing to another, she sat for a long time

with her little face pressed against the window-frame,

perfectly regardless of all but the moving world without.

Daylight gradually faded away, and the street wore a more and

more gloomy aspect. The rain poured, and now only an

occasional carriage or footstep disturbed the sound of its

steady pattering. Yet still Ellen sat with her face glued to

the window as if spell-bound, gazing out at every dusky form

that passed, as though it had some strange interest for her.

At length, in the distance, light after light began to appear;

presently Ellen could see the dim figure of the lamplighter

crossing the street, from side to side, with his ladder; then

he drew near enough for her to watch him as he hooked his

ladder on the lamp-irons, ran up and lit the lamp, then

shouldered the ladder and marched off quick, the light

glancing on his wet oil-skin hat, rough greatcoat, and

lantern, and on the pavement and iron railings. The veriest

moth could not have followed the light with more perseverance

than did Ellen's eyes, till the lamplighter gradually

disappeared from view, and the last lamp she could see was

lit; and not till then did it occur to her that there was such

a place as indoors. She took her face from the window. The

room was dark and cheerless, and Ellen felt stiff and chilly.

However, she made her way to the fire, and having found the

poker, she applied it gently to the Liverpool coal with such

good effect, that a bright ruddy blaze sprang up, and lighted

the whole room. Ellen smiled at the result of her experiment.

"That is something like," said she, to herself; "who says I

can't poke the fire? Now, let us see if I can't do something

else. Do but see how these chairs are standing — one would

think we had had a sewing-circle here — there, go back to your

places — that looks a little better; now, these curtains must

come down, and I may as well shut the shutters too — and now

this tablecloth must be content to hang straight, and Mamma's

box and the books must lie in their places, and not all

helter-skelter. Now, I wish Mamma would wake up; I should

think she might. I don't believe she is asleep either — she

don't look as if she was."

Ellen was right in this; her mother's face did not wear the

look of sleep, nor indeed of repose at all; the lips were

compressed, and the brow not calm. To try, however, whether

she was asleep or no, and with the half-acknowledged intent to

rouse her at all events, Ellen knelt down by her side, and

laid her face close to her mother's on the pillow. But this

failed to draw either word or sign. After a minute or two,

Gives sorrow to the winds.

Sorrow and excitement made Ellen's eyelids heavy, and she

slept late on the following morning. The great dressing-bell

waked her. She started up with a confused notion that

something was the matter: there was a weight on her heart that

was very strange to it. A moment was enough to bring it all

back; and she threw herself again on her pillow, yielding

helplessly to the grief she had twice been obliged to control

the evening before. Yet love was stronger than grief still,

and she was careful to allow no sound to escape her that could

reach the ears of her mother, who slept in the next room. Her

resolve was firm to grieve her no more with useless

expressions of sorrow — to keep it to herself as much as

possible. But this very thought, that she must keep it to

herself, gave an edge to poor Ellen's grief, and the

convulsive clasp of her little arms round the pillow plainly

showed that it needed none.

The breakfast-bell again startled her, and she remembered she

must not be too late down stairs, or her mother might inquire

and find out the reason. "I will _not_ trouble mother — I will

not — I will not!" she resolved to herself as she got out of

bed, though the tears fell faster as she said so. Dressing was

sad work to Ellen to-day; it went on very heavily. Tears

dropped into the water as she stooped her head to the basin;

and she hid her face in the towel to cry, instead of making

the ordinary use of it. But the usual duties were dragged

through at last, and she went to the window. "I'll not go down

till papa is gone," she thought — "he'll ask me what is the

matter with my eyes."

Ellen opened the window. The rain was over; the lovely light

of a fair September morning was beautifying everything it

shone upon. Ellen had been accustomed to amuse herself a good

deal at this window, though nothing was to be seen from it but

an ugly city prospect of back walls of houses, with the yards

belonging to them, and a bit of narrow street. But she had

watched the people that showed themselves at the windows, and

the children that played in the yards, and the women that went

to the pumps, till she had become pretty well acquainted with

the neighbourhood; and though they were for the most part

dingy, dirty, and disagreeable — women, children, houses, and

all — she certainly had taken a good deal of interest in their

proceedings. It was all gone now. She could not bear to look

at them; she felt as if it made her sick; and turning away her

eyes, she lifted them to the bright sky above her head, and

gazed into its clear depth of blue till she almost forgot that

there was such a thing as a city in the world. Little white

clouds were chasing across it, driven by the fresh wind that

was blowing away Ellen's hair from her face, and cooling her

hot cheeks. That wind could not have been long in coming from

the place of woods and flowers, it was so sweet still. Ellen

looked till, she didn't know why, she felt calmed and soothed

— as if somebody was saying to her softly, "Cheer up, my

child, cheer up; things are not so bad as they might be:

things will be better." Her attention was attracted at length

by voices below; she looked down, and saw there, in one of the

yards, a poor deformed child, whom she had often noticed

before, and always with sorrowful interest. Besides his bodily

infirmity, he had a further claim on her sympathy, in having

lost his mother within a few months. Ellen's heart was easily

touched this morning; she felt for him very much. "Poor, poor