England -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; Orphans -- Fiction; Sisters -- Fiction; Young women -- Fiction
"I don't know; but there must be lots of ways. A girl can't be given
hands, and arms, and legs, and a brain, and a head all for nothing."
"A great many are, it seems to me," said Susie, with a sigh. "But
there--we have cut enough orange peel for to-day. We must go and get
tea for daddy. Come with me into the kitchen, and I will complete your
education by teaching you how to make a proper tea-cake."
CHAPTER ELEVEN.
RICH IN LOVE.
As long as she lived, Florence Heathcote never forgot that week which
she spent with the Arbuthnots. They belonged to that noble race of
people who live for others. They were not rich--indeed, far from that,
they were extremely poor. Had any one been told the exact extent of
Colonel Arbuthnot's income, that person would have stared and refused to
believe it. But then the person would not have known Susie's saving
powers, her wonderful capability for making tenpence do the work of a
shilling, for never losing a penny's worth in any transaction, and for
renovating her old garments so that they looked almost like new. The
money she was allowed for clothes she spent, as a rule, on other people.
What did it matter if her hat was last year's fashion when poor Mrs
Jones and Mary Bryce got their nourishing soup, and when the orphan
child of that gallant fellow, William Engelhart, was taught by her to
read and write, and she paid the necessary money for his small
education? The fact was, fashionable hats, jackets, and skirts would
not have become Susie in the very least: she would have looked
absolutely out of place in them. No one ever looked at Susie
Arbuthnot's clothes: the eye was arrested by the kindliness in the
kindly face, by the smile round the good-natured lips, by the strength
and firmness of purpose of that hand grip, by the noble soul that
radiated from that somewhat homely countenance.
And if Susie was good and could do good, she was but her father's
complement. Each seemed to complete the character. There never had
been before, nor ever since, a father and daughter so wholly and
completely one. They had the same tastes, the same desires. Life with
them was a little season to be spent in the school of the Almighty. It
was the will of God that they should learn His lessons, and they learned
them with submission, with cheerfulness, and without a thought of
grumbling. The books they liked best were books that spoke about a
future state. Often on Sunday evenings they sat close together, talking
of that period when they should lay down for ever this vile body, and
put on the celestial body. But they were not morbid in their
conversations. They were always simple, and homely and direct. It was
their pleasure to do what little good they could. Every one loved them
at Langdale, and they were the life and light of the place.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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