She told me how he had raised and rescued her With reverent pity, as, in touching grief, He touched the wounds of Christ,—and made her feel More self-respecting. Hope, he called, belief In God,—work, worship ... therefore let us pray! And thus, to snatch her soul from atheism, And keep it stainless from her mother’s face, He sent her to a famous sempstress-house Far off in London, there to work and hope. With that, they parted. She kept sight of Heaven, But not of Romney. He had good to do To others: through the days and through the nights, She sewed and sewed and sewed. She drooped sometimes, And wondered, while, along the tawny light, She struck the new thread into her needle’s eye, How people, without mothers on the hills, Could choose the town to live in!—then she drew The stitch, and mused how Romney’s face would look, And if ’twere likely he’d remember hers, When they two had their meeting after death. FOURTH BOOK. THEY met still sooner. ’Twas a year from thence When Lucy Gresham, the sick sempstress girl, Who sewed by Marian’s chair so still and quick, And leant her head upon the back to cough More freely when, the mistress turning round, The others took occasion to laugh out,— Gave up at last. Among the workers, spoke A bold girl with black eyebrows and red lips,— ‘You know the news? Who’s dying, do you think? Our Lucy Gresham. I expected it As little as Nell Hart’s wedding. Blush not, Nell, Thy curls be red enough without thy cheeks; And, some day, there’ll be found a man to dote On red curls.—Lucy Gresham swooned last night, Dropped sudden in the street while going home; And now the baker says, who took her up And laid her by her grandmother in bed, He’ll give her a week to die in. Pass the silk. Let’s hope he gave her a loaf too, within reach, For otherwise they’ll starve before they die, That funny pair of bedfellows! Miss Bell, I’ll thank you for the scissors. The old crone Is paralytic—that’s the reason why Our Lucy’s thread went faster than her breath, Which went too quick, we all know. Marian Erle! Why, Marian Erle, you’re not the fool to cry? Your tears spoil Lady Waldemar’s new dress, You piece of pity!’ Marian rose up straight, And, breaking through the talk and through the work, Went outward, in the face of their surprise, To Lucy’s home, to nurse her back to life Or down to death. She knew, by such an act, All place and grace were forfeit in the house, Whose mistress would supply the missing hand With necessary, not inhuman haste, And take no blame. But pity, too, had dues: She could not leave a solitary soul To founder in the dark, while she sate still And lavished stitches on a lady’s hem As if no other work were paramount.