Boys -- Juvenile fiction; London (England) -- Social conditions -- 19th century -- Juvenile fiction; Siblings -- Juvenile fiction
Faith laid him tenderly on the horse-hair sofa, covered him over, and
sat down by his side. She sat on a low seat, and, folding her hands on
her lap, gazed straight before her. Faith was nearly eleven years old
now, but she was small for her age--small, thin, and very sad-looking.
Only when playing with Roy, or tending Roy, did her little sallow face
grow childish and happy in expression. Faith possessed her mother's
sensitive temperament. Love alone could make this child bright and
happy; without love she must pine and die, perhaps as her mother died.
Tears gathered slowly in her eyes as she recalled the little scene
between her father and Roy. After a time, hearing steps in the street,
she rose and went to the window. Some children, with their parents,
were walking up the street--happy children in their Sunday best, and
happy parents, caring for and loving them. Faith watched one little
group with special interest. There were four in this group--a father
and mother, and boy and girl. The girl held her father's hand, and
danced as she walked. The boy, a very little child, was led most
tenderly by his mother. Faith turned away with a great sigh, and the
tears now rolled slowly down her cheeks.
"Ain't it a hard, hard thing when a little child loses of his mother?"
she said to herself. "Oh! my little darlin' Roy, if mother had been
there he wouldn't a been kep' waiting fur his dinner."
She went over, knelt down by her little brother, and kissed his soft
cheek. Then a further thought occurred to her. That was a pretty story
the ragged girl in Regent's Park had told her to-day. She had never
heard it before, though her mother, when alive, had often spoken to her
about Jesus, but somehow this story, the sweetest of all, had never
reached her ears before to-day.
"I wish as Jesus wor alive now, and I could take Roy to him," she said
to herself. She felt that if Jesus took Roy in his arms and blessed
him, that then he might not miss his mother so much; that the great fact
of his having received the blessing of Jesus would make up to him for
the loss of his mother.
"But wot's the use," continued Faith very sadly to herself, "when Jesus
be dead years ago?"
At this juncture in the little girl's thoughts, the room-door was
opened, and a neighbour, who had often been kind to both the children,
came in. She had come to borrow a saucepan, and was in a hurry; but
seeing the tears on Faith's cheeks, she stopped to inquire the cause.
"There be nothink wrong wid the little 'un, I 'ope, Faith," she said.
"Oh, no," answered Faith. "Roy's well enough. 'Tis only as I'm so
sorry as Jesus is dead."
Mrs Mason, the neighbour, stepped back a pace or so in some
astonishment.
"Bless us and save us!" she exclaimed. "Wot a queer child! But it
ain't true, Faith, fur Jesus ain't dead. He's as alive as possible!"
"Do the Bible say that?" asked Faith.
"Yes, the Bible says it h'over and h'over."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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