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Part III

The New Year brought answers from England to the letters telling of Mr. Marriott's death. His wife's relatives were anxious to help her, though their own means were limited. Mails came and went only once in a month, in those days. By the time the return mail left it was evident that a laundry, well managed, ought to be a success. Mrs. Marriott asked her brothers if they could buy the piece of land on which her lean-to stood, letting her pay them five per cent, on the cost as rent for it, with leave to purchase it from them if she became able to do so. This would make her literally 'sure of her ground,' without loss to them. They consented gladly—bought the lean-to into the bargain, and would take no rent for the first year. By the time Christmas came round again, all the little debts owed to poor people were paid off. Then came a hard struggle. It was page 54necessary to add to the building, and to employ more helpers, at four or five shillings a day each, and food. Even at that price, good workers were hard to find, for respectable women were in constant demand for washing in ladies' own houses. As time went on, however, good helpers came, one by one. Mrs. Marriott always said that God sent them. Some were widows like herself, or women with sick husbands, and her sympathy in their heavy task attached them to her.

As the third year rolled on, the workers began to ask each other how it was that a woman with a flourishing business like hers still lived so frugally, and never took a pleasure that would cost money. 'You can't say as she scrimps us,' said a candid washerwoman, 'but she do scrimp herself and them children!'

And 'them children' felt it sometimes, when they saw the children of women who came to wash dressed much more smartly than they were, and going out for jaunts and excursions they never thought of taking. They had their moments of sharp mortification; everyone must, who will not spend money as his neighbours do; but locked in the desk their mother had brought out from England was something that made up for it all—a little packet of receipted bills, lying beside the accounts still unpaid.

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There are men and women who would gladly renounce or suffer anything to have that word 'Paid' stamped upon their bills, who will never live to see it—borne down by sheer misfortune, or the wrong-doing of others. Let not this story wound their wounds.

At last,—it must have been about the end of the fifth year of her widowhood,—Mrs. Marriott had but one more bill to pay. She had left it to the last, as the sum was large, for her,—nearly twenty pounds,—and the creditor, a corn merchant, was well to do.

Davie was still at Mr. Foster's, and very happy there. He was trusted like a son, and, fortunately for him and her parents, his friend Emmie had embarked on a long engagement which kept her at home. He earned good wages now.

There came a Saturday night when he brought home his month's money, and the family sat round to reckon what they had in hand and what expenses lay before them, and decided that, without imprudence, they could afford the luxury of paying that last bill.

It was a moment they had waited for, prayed for, longed for, all these years; and now, except that their hearts beat fast, there was nothing to mark it. The girls had their sewing in their hands, just as they had on that well - remembered page 56Christmas Day. George, grown into a fine young man, sat with his account-books open before him; the mother had her desk on her lap, and was looking over the papers in it.

'Yes, we can do it,' she said. 'And you have every one helped towards it.'

'Except me, mother,' said little Rhoda,—the Tottie of former days,—looking up with tears in her eyes. 'I have never earned anything to pay the debts.'

'Oh, but you've helped!' exclaimed her brothers.

The mother put her arm round her. 'My little, good girl,' she said, 'there is no one could have done more than you, for you have done all you could, always. You have run about and helped us all to earn. And it is not only the earning that has done it, either; it was your not fretting to spend all we earned. Oh, I've felt it for you—you know I have!—what you have all had to give up, and not to do—and to live plainly and go shabby, that we might do this. I don't think I could have gone through with it, if you had been all coming round me, "Mother, do let us have this," "Mayn't we do that?" or "go there?" I haven't had that to bear. We have been of one heart and one mind all through; and if the bigger ones have earned most, Lily and Rhoda have done the most to make page 57a pleasure of the trouble. You have been our little sunbeams.'

She turned to kiss the little daughter at her side, and said, 'You shall pay this debt, dear—the last. This clears your father's name. Thank God!'

Her voice failed. She had looked forward to this hour, and thought how she would kneel down with the children and thank God for granting the desire of their hearts; and now she could not. She had mastered her grief to lead them in prayer in the time of trouble, but this joy was too much for her; the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving went up from their full hearts unspoken.

The corn merchant sat in his office on Monday afternoon. He had heard incidentally that the Marriotts were paying their debts, but never thought of receiving anything from them himself. He had never sent in his account a second time, simply writing it off as a bad debt when he learned the circumstances of David Marriott's death.

It was a warm afternoon, and the door stood open into the outer office, which was empty, his clerk having gone out. A knock sounded at the outer door, and when he said 'Come in,' in came a little girl in a pink cotton frock, with a well-worn straw hat upon her head.

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'And what do you want?' he said kindly.

'Please, mother sent you this,' she answered, putting an envelope into his hand.

The corn merchant opened it, and there was his long-standing account, with notes in full for payment.

It was he who told me the outline of this story, and he said, 'I never shall forget the look of pride on that child's face when she gave me the money.'

That was the last I ever heard of the family. I have often longed to know what has become of them all since.