But to-day she found the girl’s eyes very red as if with long weeping. If Syl was selfish it was only because she never came in contact with the pains and needs of others. She had “fed on the roses and lain among the lilies of life,”--how was she to know the hurt of its stinging nettles? But she could not have been the lovesome, charming girl she was if she had had a nature hard and indifferent to the pains of others.
To see Mary Gordon’s red eyes was enough. Instantly she drew the work out of the fingers that trembled so; and then she set herself to draw the secret sorrow out of the poor, trembling heart.
It was the old story, so sadly common and yet so bitterly sad, of a mother wasting away and fading out of life, and a daughter struggling to take care of her, and breaking her heart because she could do so little.
“I’m used to all that,” the girl said sadly, “and I don’t let myself cry for what I can’t help. But this morning I heard her say to herself, as I was getting every thing ready for her, ‘O, the long, lonesome day!’ She thought I did not hear her, for she never complains; but somehow it broke me down. I keep thinking of her, suffering and weary and all alone. But I can’t help that, either; and I must learn to be contented in thinking that I do my best.”
“But can’t you stay at home with her and work there?” cried Syl, all eager sympathy and interest.
“No, I can’t get work enough in that way. People want their altering and fixing done in their own houses, and plain sewing pays so poorly. Sometimes I’ve thought if I only had a machine, so I could get a great deal done, I might manage but to hire one would eat up all my profits.”
Syl thought a little silent while; and it was a pretty sight to see the fair young face settle into such deep earnestness.
“Well,” she said at length, “at least you shall stay at home with her to-morrow; for all those ruffles can be done just as well there as here, and you shall carry them home with you. And you’d better go early this afternoon; there’ll be enough work to last you, and I can’t bear to think of her waiting for you, and wanting you, so many long hours. We’ll give her a little surprise.”
Mary Gordon did not speak for a moment. I think she was getting her voice steady, for when she did begin it trembled.