THE LITTLE PAUPER.
IT is only a little pauper. Never mind her. You see she knows her place and keeps close to the wall, as if she expected an oath or a blow. The cold winds are making merry with those thin rags. You see nothing of childhood's rounded symmetry in those shrunken limbs and pinched features. Push her one side,—she 's used to it,—she won't complain; she can't remember that she ever heard a kind word in her life. She 'd think you were mocking if you tried it.
She passes into the warm kitchen, savory with odorous dainties, and is ordered out with a shout by the portly cook. In the shop windows she sees nice fresh loaves of bread, and tempting little cakes. Rosy little children pass her on their way to school, well-fed, well-clad and joyous, with a mother's parting kiss yet warm on their sweet lips.
There seems to be happiness enough in the world, but it never
comes to her. Her little basket is quite empty; and now, faint with
hunger, she leans wearily against that shop window. There is a lovely
lady, who has just passed in. She is buying cakes and
bon-bons for her
little girl, as if she had the purse of Fortunatus. How nice it must be to be warm, and have enough to eat! Poor Meta! She has tasted nothing since she was sent forth with a curse in the morning, to beg or steal; and the tears will come. There is happiness and plenty in the world, but none for Meta!
Not so fast, little one! Warm hearts beat sometimes under silk and velvet. That lady has caught sight of your little woe-begone face and shivering form. O, what if it were her child! And, obeying a sweet maternal impulse, she passes out the door, takes those little, benumbed fingers in her daintily gloved hands, and leads the child,—wondering, shy and bewildered,—into fairy land.
A delightful and novel sensation of warmth creeps over those frozen limbs; a faint color tinges the pale cheeks, and the eyes grow liquid and lovely, as Meta raises them thankfully to her benefactress. The lady's little girl looks on with an innocent joy, and learns, for the first time, how "blessed are the merciful."
And then Meta passes out, with a heavy basket, and a light heart.
Surely the street has grown wider, and the sky brighter! This can
scarcely be the same world! Meta's form is erect now; her step light,
as a child's should be. The sunshine of human love has brightened her
pathway! Ah, Meta!—earth is not all darkness—bright angels yet walk
the earth. Sweet-voiced Pity
and heaven-eyed Charity sometimes stoop to bless. God's image is only marred, not destroyed. He who feeds the ravens, bends to listen. Look upward, little Meta!