Mother Goodhugh

“ I want to go home! I want my mother, that's what I want."
"Where is your mother?" asked Wid Gardner. He had come over near to her when Doctor Barnes was helping Mary into the house.
"Dead—dead long ago," wept Annie. "When I was a little girl. Like her, Mary, there—we didn't neither of us ever have a mother. We done just the best we could, both of us. We've tried and tried to find some sort of place where we belonged, and we couldn't. We haven't got any place to go to. I haven't got a place on earth to call my home. ”

“ Goodenough. And pray remember, I am the last person in the world to match-make. Cynthia made Mr Henderson's acquaintance at her uncle's in London.'
'Ay! I thought her cousin was very often ill, and needing her nursing, and you were very keen she should be of use. I am not saying but what it is right in a mother; I'm only putting in a word for Miss Molly.'
'Thank you, Mrs. Goodenough,' said Molly, half-angry, half-laughing. 'When I want to be married, I'll not trouble mamma. I'll look out for myself.'
'Molly is becoming so popular, I hardly know how we shall keep her at home,' said Mrs. Gibson. ”

“ Every word was a moan as the frightened child clutched Georgie’s hand and demanded of her whether her mother was lost forever. She did not seem to remember that she must have had a father, too; it was all “my mother, my mother,” until Georgie could bear it no longer, and said to her in a whisper:
“Your mother is not dead. She is living somewhere.”
“Then why don’t she come to see me? Mothers always take care of their sick little girls, don’t they?” Annie asked, and Jack, who could see the anguish written on his sister’s face, pitied her as he had never done but once before in his life. ”

“ But, tested by any human standard, that gifted and devoted wife exhibited more of the stuff that heroes are made of, than he ever had occasion to show. That he did a father's part well, none will deny, but it was chiefly the mother's hand that so trained that family of six boys that four of them became eminent and useful preachers, while the mother of the Bovard family of preachers always owned her as her spiritual mother and guide. ”

“ What have we to thank them for?”
“Life,” suggested Godfrey.
“Why? You believe that life comes from God, and so do I in a way. If so, what has a father to do with it who is just a father and no more? With mothers perhaps it is different, but you see I love my mother and he treats her like—like a dog, or worse,” and her grey eyes filled with tears. “However, it is your father we are talking of, and there is no commandment telling me to honour him. I say I hate him and he hates me, and that’s why he is sending you away. Well, I hope you won’t find anyone to contaminate you in Switzerland.” ”

“ She breathed a deep sigh.
"Mother," whispered Cecil, "I will guard thee; do not fear!" But he crowded closer against her skirt.
"Sweet one, 'tis for thee I fear most. Run thou within and hide thyself while thou canst."
"Mother!" cried the boy, "I am a Calvert. Dost think Cousin Giles would ever speak with me again if I deserted thee? Why, I am almost a man. See, up to thy shoulder already. I can, at least, throw a stone;" and he picked one up from the road.
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"We can at least die together," Elinor murmured, "and it may be soon." ”

“ He greeted the Vila with “Good-day!” whereupon she became visible to every one as a beautiful maiden.
Soon after the youth married her. I was present at the wedding, ate and drank with the old man and conversed much with him; and we moistened our throats so often with sweet wine from Zagorje that my grandfather and I can taste it yet.
“Can you really, mother’s-mother?” exclaimed the little boy.
The other grandmother laughed. “That is only the way it ends,” she said. “Some stories end that way.” ”

“ Why should we run away now? If we did, we'd take ourselves with us wherever we went, wouldn't we? This is as good a place to live out life as any I could have found. You can't really evade things, you know."
"As though I asked to! I'd rather fight things than evade them."
"I think so," said his mother mournfully. "I suppose that's true."
"But you've got to be happy, mother," said he, again taking her hand in his. "I'll make you happy. I'm ready to work for you now—I'll pay you back."
"And Miss Julia?" smiled his mother. ”

“ If he was a hero to undertake such a sacrifice, what shall we call that young wife, who gave birth to her first-born during his absence, and after a few months of budding promise, during which mother-love was strongly developed, buried that child, all unsupported by the presence and sympathy of her husband ”

“ Her mother too, upon this occasion, felt a pleasing distress, and wept, and loved her daughter as before. ‘Do, my pretty Olivia,’ cried she, ‘let us have that little melancholy air your pappa was so fond of, your sister Sophy has already obliged us. Do child, it will please your old father.’ She complied in a manner so exquisitely pathetic as moved me.
When lovely woman stoops to folly,
And finds too late that men betray,
What charm can sooth her melancholy,
What art can wash her guilt away? ”

“ She regretted that so much of her time had been spent in light reading, and that her writings had not been of a more decidedly religious character. “Mamma,” said she one day, “should God spare my life, my time and talents shall, for the future, be devoted to a higher and holier end.” “O mother, how sadly have I trifled with the gifts of Heaven! What have I done which can benefit one human being?” The New Testament was now her daily study, and a portion of each day was devoted to private prayer and self-examination. ”

“ Her mother was ill, in bed; but she expressed her delight with such unequivocal animation, that the child’s face changed from doubt to rapture, and she seized the paper, ran away, and immediately added the concluding stanzas. When they were finished, her mother pressed her to her bosom, wept with delight, and promised her all the aid and encouragement she could give her. The sensitive child burst into tears. ‘And do you wish me to write, mamma? and will papa approve? and will it be right that I should do so?’” The following are the verses:—
“And does a hero’s dust lie here? ”

“ Born as she was at a time of great social and political disturbance, the child, by inheritance, of the great French Revolution, and suffering, as soon as born, a loss certainly in her case the greatest of all, that of her noble-minded mother, we can imagine the kind of education this young being passed through—with the abstracted and anxious philosopher-father, with the respectable but shallow-minded step-mother provided by Godwin to guard the young children he so suddenly found himself called upon to care for, Mary and two half-sisters about her own age. ”

“ I have no doubt that I inherited from my mother a love of the night side of nature; not a love that begets melancholy, but an appetite that found pleasure in the shadows, as well as the lights, of life and imagination. Eminently practical as she was—laborious, skilful, and successful in the duties which Providence had assigned her, as the head of a large family, with narrow means—she was still of a poetic temperament. ”

“ What is the matter here?"
"Oh, sir, our boy!" cried my mother; "our dear boy, Mr. Wringhim! Look at him, and speak to him: he is either dying or translated, sir!"
He looked at me with a countenance of great alarm; mumbling some sentences to himself, and then taking me by the arm, as if to feel my pulse, he said, with a faltering voice: "Something has indeed befallen you, either in body or mind, boy, for you are transformed, since the morning, that I could not have known you for the same person. Have you met with any accident?" ”

“ Josephine heard with composure—the tears coursing each other down her cheeks—the words which placed an eternal barrier between affection and its object. This painful duty over, pressing for an instant the handkerchief to her eyes, she rose, and, in a voice but slightly tremulous, pronounced the oath of acceptance; then, sitting down, she took the pen and signed. 250 The mother and daughter now retired, followed by Eugene, who appears to have suffered the most severely of the three; for he had no sooner reached the ante-chamber, than he fell lifeless on the floor. ”

“ Call me ‘Mother’ if you will, for that is the only name of honour by which those of my religious order may be known. In truth, as your mother in God, I welcome you and bless you, from my heart forgiving you those ills which you have worked against me, being, as I know well, driven by a love that is greater than any woman bears to woman. But that eating fire of passion scorned is the heritage of both of us, and of it we will talk afterwards. I must not waste the time of the General Olaf, whom destiny, in return for many griefs, has appointed to be my jailer. ”

“ Your own mother said she would raise her daughters, if she had a hundred of them, to be fit for life and loving. She said she would try to teach them what men really were, and then would pray that each might find a fit one among them all. From the first time I saw you I hated my own infirmity. I conquered it—for you. I gave my rib for you. I made an image in my heart of you alone, Suzanne. If you don't think I'm good enough to love you, the one woman out of them all, then don't ever think of me again. But your own mother—”
“You seem to have had quite a lot to do with my own mother. ”

“ You see, you don't know these things yet."
"No," said he, "but you and Miss Julia both will be paid back—the money part of it—some time. As for me, I'm not going to have any home."
She sat silent for quite a time, the meager breakfast now being ended for both.
"Oh, can't you forget her, Don? Can't you give her up?" she said finally.
"I can't forget her, Mother, but I'll have to give her up. It all happened there on the car—just at once—in public."
"I'm glad you never kissed her, Don," said she. "You're both so young."
She shook her head slowly as she went on. "Love has to be loved in any case. ”

“ The hours of pleasure that I have passed with my mamma and sister, now grow painful to me. Their sorrows are much; but mine is greater than theirs; for mine are mixed with guilt and infamy.’
‘Have patience, my child,’ cried I, ‘and I hope things will yet be better. Take some repose to-night, and to-morrow I’ll carry you home to your mother and the rest of the family, from whom you will receive a kind reception. Poor woman, this has gone to her heart: but she loves you still, Olivia, and will forget it.
CHAPTER XXII. Offences are easily pardoned where there is love at bottom. ”

“ This was in part the colonel’s letter, while Godfrey’s was widely different.
“We are in for a step-mother, sure,” he wrote, “and may as well make the best of it. Try to imagine father in love, will you? and such a love! Truly she is ‘a very remarkable person,’ as you will say when you see her. Just think of father’s marrying a red-haired woman of forty, with a limp and glass eye, which looks at you with a squint, and a crack in her voice, which sounds like Ettie Armstrong’s old piano, and quite as many aches and pains as Aunt Christine herself! ”

“ The only satisfaction is that we shall be out of sight of it.”
“And a very poor one,” sighed Jock, “when mother is left to bear the brunt.”
“Mother can manage him much better than we can,” said Bobus; “besides, she is still a youngish woman, neither helpless nor destitute; and as I always tell you, the greatest kindness we can do her is to look out for ourselves.” ”

“ Art thou fearful? If so, speak, and we will not try this journey in search of one whom we may not find.”
“No,” answered Rachel; “but, Mother, whither go we?”
“We go to the Land of Death. Come, then, the moment is at hand. It is hard on midnight. See, yonder star stands above the holy Tree,” and she pointed to a bright orb that hung almost over the topmost bough of the cedar, “it marks thy road, and if thou wouldst pass it, now is the hour.”
“Mother,” asked Noie, “may I come with her? I also have my dead, and where my Sister goes I follow.” ”

“ The knitting-needles clicked fast.
“Am I a teasing child?” asked the little boy at last.
“No, you are not, bless your little heart!” said the other grandmother. “Mother’s-mother likes to tell you stories. Only you [189] should not sit quiet too long. You ought to play now.”
The little boy went close to the other grandmother’s side, and looking up into her face, he said very coaxingly:
“But I am going away to-morrow, little mother’s-mother. Won’t you tell me one more story?”
“Run out and see if the sun is setting,” said the other grandmother. ”

“ I was born an outcast in the world, in which I was destined to act so conspicuous a part. My mother was a burning and a shining light, in the community of Scottish worthies, and in the days of her virginity had suffered much in the persecution of the saints. But it so pleased Heaven that, as a trial of her faith, she was married to one of the wicked; a man all over spotted with the leprosy of sin. ”

“ When the Emperor’s son had heard the details of the whole story he commanded the two maidens to be put to death. Then he married his own love. The old woman he honored as his own mother, and when she died he gave her an imperial funeral.
“That is a beautiful story, grandmother,” said the little boy, “although there is not a Dragon nor a Fox nor a Mouse in it. There is a plant, though. I wish one of the plants in our field would turn into a golden-haired [297] maiden—a very little one, big enough to play with me.” ”