Mrs. Overtheways Remembrances | Page 2

Nurse," said Ida. "He has
written a letter to me, and made me a picture of his ship; it is the
'Bonne Esperance,' which he says means Good Hope. I love this letter
better than anything he has ever sent me."
Nevertheless, Ida took out the carved fans and workboxes, the beads,
and handkerchiefs, and feathers, the dainty foreign treasures the
sailor-father had sent to her from time to time; dusted them, kissed
them, and told them that the Captain was coming home. But the letter
she wore in her pocket by day, and kept under her pillow by night.
"Why don't you put your letter into one of your boxes, like a tidy young
lady, Miss Ida?" said Nurse. "You'll wear it all to bits doing as you do."
"It will last till the ship comes home," said Miss Ida.
It had need then to have been written on the rock, graven with an iron
pen for ever; for the "Bonne Esperance" (like other earthly hopes) had
perished to return no more. She foundered on her homeward voyage,
and went down into the great waters, whilst Ida slept through the
stormy night, with the Captain's letter beneath her pillow.

Alas! Alas! Alas!
* * * * *
Two or three months had now passed away since Ida became an orphan.
She had become accustomed to the crape-hung frock; she had learnt to
read the Captain's letter as the memorial of a good hope which it had
pleased God to disappoint; she was fairly happy again. It was in the
midst of that new desolation in her lonely life that she had come to stay
with her great-uncle, and had begun to watch the doings of the little old
lady who lived over the way. When dolls seemed vanity, and Noah's
Ark a burden, it had been a quiet amusement, demanding no exertion,
to see what little she could see of the old lady's life, and to speculate
about what she could not; to wonder and fancy what Mrs. Overtheway
looked like without her bonnet, and what she did with herself when she
was not at church. Ida's imagination did not carry her far. She believed
her friend to be old, immeasurably old, indefinitely old; and had a
secret faith that she had never been otherwise. She felt sure that she
wore a cap indoors, and that it was a nicer one than Nurse's; that she
had real tea, with sugar and cream, instead of milk-and-water, and hot
toast rather than bread-and-treacle for tea; that she helped herself at
meals, and went to bed according to her own pleasure and convenience;
was--perhaps on these very grounds--utterly happy, and had always
been so.
"I am only a little girl," said Ida, as she pressed her face sadly to the
cold window-pane. "I am only a little girl, and very sad, you know,
because Papa was drowned at sea; but Mrs. Overtheway is very old,
and always happy, and so I love her."
And in this there was both philosophy and truth.
It is a mistake to suppose that the happiness of others is always a
distasteful sight to the sad at heart. There are times in which life seems
shorn of interests and bereaved of pleasure, when it is a relief, almost
amounting to consolation, to believe that any one is happy. It is some
feeling of this nature, perhaps, which makes the young so attractive to
the old. It soothes like the sound of harmonious music, the sight of

harmonious beauty. It witnesses to a conviction lying deep even in the
most afflicted souls that (come what may), all things were created good,
and man made to be blessed; before which sorrow and sighing flee
away.
This was one of many things which formed the attraction for Ida in the
little old lady who lived over the way. That green gate shut in a life of
which the child knew nothing, and which might be one of mysterious
delights; to believe that such things could be was consoling, and to
imagine them was real entertainment. Ida would sometimes draw a
chair quietly to the table beside her own, and fancy that Mrs.
Overtheway was having tea with her. She would ask the old lady if she
had been in time for church that morning, beg her to take off her bonnet,
and apologise politely for the want of hot tea and toast. So far all was
well, for Ida could answer any of these remarks on Mrs. Overtheway's
behalf; but it may be believed that after a certain point this one-sided
conversation flagged. One day Nurse overheard Ida's low murmurs.
"What are you talking about, Miss Ida?" said she.
"I am pretending to have Mrs. Overtheway to tea," said Ida.
"Little girls