The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, No. 63, January, 1863. Various

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      She stood, her fair hair pushed back from her face, her eye deadening every moment, quite quiet.

      "Good bye, Lot."

      The figure touched him somehow, standing alone in the night there.

      "It wasn't my fault at the first," she wandered. "Nobody teached me better."

      "I'm not a church-member, thank God!" said Pumphrey to himself, and so washed his hands in innocency.

      "Well, good bye, girl," kindly. "Try and lead a better life. I wish I could have given you work."

      "It was only for Benny that I cared, Sir."

      "You're sick? Or"—

      "It'll not last long, now. I only keep myself alive eating opium now and then. D' ye know? I fell by your hall to-day; had a fit, they said. It wasn't a fit; it was death, Sir."

      He smiled.

      "Why didn't you die, then?"

      "I wouldn't. Benny would have known then, I said,—'I will not. I must take care o' him first.' Good bye. You'd best not be seen here."

      And so she left him.

      One moment she stood uncertain, being alone, looking down into the seething black water covered with ice.

      "There's one chance yet," she muttered. "It's hard; but I'll try,"—with a shivering sigh; and went dragging herself along the wharf, muttering still something about Benny.

      As she went through the lighted streets, her step grew lighter. She lifted her head. Why, she was only a child yet, in some ways, you know; and this was Christmas-time; and it wasn't easy to believe, that, with the whole world strong and glad, and the True Love coming into it, there was no chance for her. Was it? She hurried on, keeping in the shadow of the houses to escape notice, until she came to the more open streets,—the old "commons." She stopped at the entrance of an alley, going to a pump, washing her face and hands, then combing her fair, silky hair.

      "I'll try it," she said again.

      Some sudden hope had brought a pink flush to her cheek and a moist brilliance to her eye. You could not help thinking, had society not made her what she was, how fresh and fair and debonair a little maiden she would have been.

      "He's my mother's brother. He'd a kind face, though he struck me. I'll kill him, if he strikes me agin," the dark trade-mark coming into her eyes. "But mebbe," patting her hair, "he'll not. Just call me Charley, as Ben does: help me to be like his wife: I'll hev a chance for heaven at last."

      She turned to a big brick building and ran lightly up the stairs on the outside. It had been a cotton-factory, but was rented in tenement-rooms now. On the highest porch was one of Lot's rooms: she had two. The muslin curtain was undrawn, a red fire-light shone out. She looked in through the window, smiling. A clean, pure room: the walls she had whitewashed herself; a white cot-bed in one corner; a glowing fire, before which a little child sat on a low cricket, building a house out of blocks. A brave, honest-faced little fellow, with clear, reserved eyes, and curling golden hair. The girl, Lot, might have looked like that at his age.

      "Benny!" she called, tapping on the pane.

      "Yes, Charley!" instantly, coming quickly to the door.

      She caught him up in her arms.

      "Is my baby tired waiting for sister? I'm finding Christmas for him, you know."

      He put his arms about her neck, kissing her again and again, and laying his head down on her shoulder.

      "I'm so glad you've come, Charley! so glad! so glad!"

      "Has my boy his stocking up? Such a big boy to have his stocking up!"

      He put his chubby hands over her eyes quickly, laughing.

      "Don't look, Charley! don't! Benny's played you a trick now, I tell you!" pulling her towards the fire. "Now look! Not Benny's stocking: Charley's, I guess."

      The girl sat down on the cricket, holding him on her lap, playing with the blocks, as much of a child as he.

      "Why, Bud! Such an awful lot of candies that stocking'll hold!" laughing with him. "It'll take all Kriss Kringle's sack."

      "Kriss Kringle! Oh, Charley! I'm too big; I'm five years now. You can't cheat me."

      The girl's very lips went white. She got up at his childish words, and put him down.

      "No, I'll not cheat you, Benny,—never, any more."

      "Where are you going, Charley?"

      "Just out a bit," wrapping a plain shawl about her. "To find Christmas, you know. For you—and me."

      He pattered after her to the door.

      "You'll come put me to bed, Charley dear? I'm so lonesome!"

      "Yes, Bud. Kiss me. One,—two,—three times,—for God's good-luck."

      He kissed her. And Lot went out into the wide, dark world,—into Christmas night, to find a friend.

      She came a few minutes later to a low frame-building, painted brown: Adam Craig's house and shop. The little sitting-room had a light in it: his wife would be there with the baby. Lot knew them well, though they never had seen her. She had watched them through the window for hours in winter nights. Some damned soul might have thus looked wistfully into heaven: pitying herself, feeling more like God than the blessed within, because she knew the pain in her heart, the struggle to do right, and pitied it. She had a reason for the hungry pain in her blood when the kind-faced old cobbler passed her. She was Nelly's child. She had come West to find him.

      "Never, that he should know me! never that! but for Benny's sake."

      If Benny could have brought her to him, saying, "See, this is Charley, my Charley!" But Adam knew her by another name,—Devil Lot.

      While she stood there, looking in at the window, the snow drifting on her head in the night, two passers-by halted an instant.

      "Oh, father, look!" It was a young girl spoke. "Let me speak to that woman."

      "What does thee mean, Maria?"

      She tried to draw her hand from his arm.

      "Let me go,—she's dying, I think. Such a young, fair face! She thinks God has forgotten her. Look!"

      The old Quaker hesitated.

      "Not thee, Maria. Thy mother shall find her to-morrow. Thee must never speak to her. Accursed! 'Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death.'"

      They passed on. Lot heard it all. God had offered the pure young girl a chance to save a soul from death; but she threw it aside. Lot did not laugh: looked after them with tearless eyes, until they were out of sight. She went to the door then. "It's for Benny," she whispered, swallowing down the choking that made her dumb. She knocked and went in.

      Jinny was alone: sitting by the fire, rocking the baby to sleep, singing some child's hymn: a simple little thing, beginning,—

        "Come, let us sing of Jesus,

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