Little Pollie Part 10

"To see Pollie?" asked the widow in surprise; "who is she?"

"I don't know," was the reply, "but she's coming; she told me so, and soon too."

"Who can it be?" they all questioned of each other, pausing in their work to look at the excited girl.

"I'll tell you all about it," exclaimed Sally, who felt herself to be of some importance as the bearer of such wonderful news; "only just let me get my breath a bit."

"Well," she continued, when sufficiently recovered to proceed with her story, but which, like all narrators of startling intelligence, she seemed to wish to spin out, so as to excite the curiosity of her hearers to the utmost; "well, I was standing at the top of Threadneedle Street, with my back to the Mansion House, looking to see if any customers were coming from Moorgate Street way, when some one touched me on my shoulder. I turned sharp round, as I thought maybe it was a gent wanting a bunch of flowers for his coat. But instead of a gent it was, oh, such a pretty lady! Not a young lady; p'raps as old as you, Mrs. Turner, p'raps older. She was dressed all in black, with, oh my! such c.r.a.pe, and jet beads; and though she smiled when she spoke, yet she seemed sad-like."

"Are you the little girl I saw here about a year ago?" says she.

"May be I am, marm," says I; "cos I'm pretty well allers here, leastway in the mornings."

She looked at me a bit, and then she says--

"'I should not have thought to find you such a big girl in so short a time. Do you remember me? I bought some violets, and you told me your name, and where you lived; indeed I should have come to see you long ago as I promised, but was obliged to go abroad suddenly with my own little girl.'

"And then I thought she was going to cry, she looked so sad," added Sally, "and she said"----

"'But G.o.d took her home.'"

"Poor dear lady!" was the exclamation of Sally's attentive listeners.

"Even the rich have troubles also," said Mrs. Turner with a pitying sigh.

"Wait a bit, I 'aint told you all yet," cried the girl; "well, I just then thought of what Pollie told us about the lady who gave her a s.h.i.+lling the very first day she went with me selling violets. So I says--

"It warn't me, marm, you saw that day; it was little Pollie!"

"'Yes, that was the name,' says she; 'and where is little Pollie?'

"With that I up and told her as how Pollie wasn't well, and so she says, 'I will come to see her directly I have finished my business in the City.' Oh, Lor'!" cried Sally, suddenly pausing in her story, "here she be, I'm sure, for there's some one coming up the stairs with Mrs.

Flanagan, some one who don't wear big heavy boots too; can't you hear?"

Sally was right; for the kindly face of their neighbour appeared in the doorway, ushering in "the beautiful lady."

"And so this is little Pollie," the sweet voice said, as, after speaking cheerfully to the widow and the others who were in the room, she stood beside the sick child. "Well, Pollie, I have come to see you at last, and in return for the beautiful violets you gave me a year ago, I will, with our merciful Father's blessing us, put some roses on your white cheeks."

My story is told!

In a pretty lodge close to the gates of a magnificent park live Pollie and her dear long-suffering mother, but now as happy as it is possible for mortals to be. The widow continues her needlework, not as formerly, "to keep the wolf from the door," but merely for their beloved lady, or what is required for the house. Pollie, whose cheeks are now truly rosy, goes every day to school, and when at home helps her mother, so that in time she will become quite a useful girl to their kind and generous benefactress.

But who are those two neat young girls who are coming down the path towards the lodge, looking so bright and cheerful? Surely one is Lizzie Stevens, and the other Sally Grimes? Yes, indeed, and the housekeeper says she "never had two better servants, so willing and steady," than our two young friends. So Sally's ambition is realised; she is a servant, and a good one too, for trusty Sally never did anything by halves.

And Mrs. Flanagan?

If you will walk across the meadow by that narrow raised path, you will see a cosy cottage adjoining the dairy. There is Mrs. Flanagan, with sleeves tucked up above her elbows, busily making b.u.t.ter; it reminds her of the years long ago, when she used to do the dairy-work at the farm, and had never known a care. But she is happy even now, for outside the window is Nora, cheerful and contented, feeding the poultry, who gather round her, clucking noisily, while some white pigeons have flown down from the dove-cot, and one has alighted on her shoulder, and Nora's merry laugh is as music to the mother's ear.

There is some one scouring milk-pans in the yard, but whose features are almost hidden by a large black bonnet; who is it? The face turns towards us, and we see Sally Grimes' mother!

So we leave all our old friends, peaceful and happy, doing their duty faithfully to the n.o.ble lady, who, though surrounded by all the world holds dear--riches--yet had sympathy for the poor ones of the earth, and pity for their sorrows.

She had resided many years abroad, but on returning to England and re-forming her establishment, had chosen these honest hard-working friends of ours to serve her. She learned from others how they had striven to live, and how they had each endeavoured to do their Heavenly Master's work as He had appointed; patient under privations, and tender to others, doing as they would be done by.

And thus suns.h.i.+ne had come to brighten the hitherto dreary paths of their struggling lives, though even in their darkest hours our humble friends had never forgotten that

"Behind a frowning providence He hides a smiling face."

And how gratefully did they now lift up their hearts to Him who "careth for us!" And when Mrs. Flanagan and Mrs. Grimes met at Mrs. Turner's, as they very often did when their work was done, they would contrast their present happy lot with those sad days of the past.

"And yet," as Mrs. Turner once said, "had it not been for our troubles we should never have known each other, for it was those very sorrows that knit us together."

"Ay, ay," interrupted Mrs. Grimes, "for your Pollie somehow made my gal hate the streets, else she might a run there till now, and never a been the rale good scholar she be."

"Ah, Pollie be a comfort to you," observed the other old friend; "and how she do grow, to be sure! Well, well, bless her heart, she won't have to rough it, my dear--leastways I hope not,--nor be led to go wrong like my poor Nora; still she'll have her sorrows, like the rest on us."

Yes, that was true; she would have her share of the trials that fall to the lot of all, and so would trusty Sally; but happily they knew where to take their cares, and He who had led them to this peaceful home would be with them still. And thus we leave them--living their lives in peaceful content, grateful for the memories given, and trusting in Him always.

And all this happiness had been brought about by--a simple Bunch of Violets!