Rensselaer Union, Volume 10, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 February 1878 — SAVED IN TIME. [ARTICLE]

SAVED IN TIME.

Mr. Marcus Wilkinson sat alone in Ill's offi<*i, with a dainty little perfumed note between his lingers ana puzzled frown upon his brow. Tho note, directed in a graceful, feminine hand, was brief: . Deab Guardian: 1 will be at the office at ten in the morning, to eonsnlt yon upon n matter of importance. Millie. “ A matter of importance,” muttered Mr. Wilkinson, twisting the note nervously. “Can my fears "be trueP has Cyril Ormsby proposed to iny pearl? I am afraid he hag! And what can Isay? What can I urge against the man, if Millie’s own instincts have played her f:rise? Ten o’clock!” The last silvery stroke of the mantleclock had not died away when the door of the office was opened by a clerk, and Millie Bentley entered the room. - Just a few warns to describe the ward of whom Marcus Wilkinson always thought a pearl, a lily, every thing pure and fair. She was of medium height, slender and graceful, with a thoughtful face of exquisite beauty. Very young, only eighteen, Millie Bentley had borne e.arly the sorrows of life. Her father, having been wealthy, had failed in business and committed suicide. Her mother, delicate and holplcss, had fought poverty feebly for two years, and sinking under privation and toil, .had contracted a fatal disease. When all hope of life was over, the nows came that Millie’s uncle, dying abroad, had left a large fortune to his only sister. A will r was made by the dying woman, leaving her own too-lately won independence to Millie, and appointing their old friend, Marcus Wilkinson, guardian to the heiress. Sorrowing, and womanly beyond her years, Millie had turned from her own grief to a noble endeavor to solace some of the trials of those w ith whom .p/vv.e-Aj. J **- —'l •* l*ot* fnmil. iar. A cousin had come at Mr. Wilkinson's request to makca home for his ward, and she resumed many long interrupted studies. But a large portion of her time was spent in tho humble homes of thoso who had been her mother’s friends in the dark days of widowhood; and her gentle charities soon extended far beyond this sm all circle. She had been an orphan two years on the day when she came to seek Mr. Wilkinson, as already described, and the sorrows of her life had lost some of their bitter sting, leaving only a gentle sadness behind. “ Well, Millie," said the old gentleman, “ what brings to me the pleasure of seeing you to-day?” “ It was about myself,” Millie said, the softest rose tints flushing her checks. “ Dear me! I didn’t think you ever took such an insignificant person into consideration at all.” “ Now, Uncle Marc, please don’t tease.” “She wants something enormous,” saidthe old gentleman, addressing the walls. “ Whenever lam Uncle Mare, I know r what to expect next.” But just then the kindly man detected signs of trouble in Millie’s face, and the jesting voice was turned at once to one of tender gravity. “ What is it, my child?” “Cyril Ormsby came to see me last evening, and he will come here to-day; but 1 wanted to see you first. He wants me to be his wife, Uncle Marc, and”—, she hesitated here—“ you do not like him!” “Who told you that?" “ No one; but 1 see it myself.” "Well, you are right. Ido not like him. But my like or dislike has na control over you.” “No control!” Millie’s voice wits piteous. “Please don’t talk so. I come to you as I would have gone to my father.” “There, dear, I was wrong. Tell me, then, as you would have told your father, do you love Mr. Ormsby?” “ I think he is tho noblest man I ever knew. If you should she him with some of my poor people, how gentle iQid courteous ho is, you woula like him, too. He has given me so much sympathy in my work, Uncle Marc, feeling, as I do, that the possession of great wealth is but a stewardship.” “ And so won your love?” “My respect and admiration, uncle. I cannot yet realize that a man so noble and so good can really desire my companionship and help in his life. But, since he does, I am glad and proud to have wonJbis confidence.” “ Hem—yes! Enthusiastic, but heartwhole!” was Mr.. Wilkinson’s mental

comment. “Suppose you and Igo for a walk?” he added, aloud. “A walkP” Millie said, in a tone of surprise. ' '. friend ,or two I should like to nave you see. When we come back 1 will tell you why I dislike Cyril Ormsby, if,” he added mentally, “ you have not already found out.” * It was not exactly such a walk as one would have mapped out for a gentlemiui’s invitation to a young, beautiful girl} but Millio followed its course, leaning upon her guardian’s arm, wondering a little, but never hesitating, the respectable portion of the city, to a quarter known as the Factory Row, ’ a place where Mr. Wilkinson had never before allowed his ward to go. For there were apt to be fevers and contagious diseases lurking there.

It lay low, and was unhealthy, and the houses were of the meanest description. “For a noble philanthropist, partly owning these factories and this quarter, Mr. Ormsby seems negleotful,” said Mr. Wilkinson, dryly. “ I have an interest in the factories, as you are aware, but do not own one of these wretched houses. They are all Cyril Ormsby’s.” “But,” Millio said eagerly “these people will not let him benefit them. They use his charity for drink; they abuse any privileges he gives them, till he is discouraged in his efforts to do them any good.” “ Oh! step in here!” It was a poor place, scantily furnished, and cheerless. Upon a cot-bod a woman lay, in the last stages of consumption. Sho looked up eagerly to Mr. Wilkinson. “ I hope you are better,” ho said, kindly. t “No; I shall never be better. If I may only die in peace; it is all I ask.” “ Mr. Ormsby will not disturb you now?” “Jennie has gone to him. Yesterday he sent word that if the rent was not ready to-day at twelve, out we must go. I’ve paid it regularly for five years, but he don’t think of that. All Jennio’s made the last month she has had to pay for fire and food. She’s but fifteen, and her pay is small.” “ What do you owe Cyril Ormsby?” “Thirty shillings!” “ And if he is not paid to-day, he swill put you out in the street to die?” “ He says the workhouse is the place for paupers." At this moment, a slim, pale girl of fifteen came in, crying bitterly. “ Mr. Wilkinson was out,” she began; and then seeing her visitors, she cried eagerly, “Oh, Mr. Wilkinson, you will not let mother be put into the street. I’ll pay every penny, sir, if only you will wait till she js better, and I can get my full time to work.” “ Have you seen Mr. Ormsby to-day, Jennie?” the old gentleman asked. “Yes, sir. He said he had.no time to hear any whining. The agent will be here at twelve, and if the money is - not paid he will put us out.” “May I?” whispered Millie. “Just as you please, my dear. Perhaps this dying woman or her child will drink up your charity.” “Hush, hush.” So tenderly, so delicately, Millie gave her charity, that there was only the deepest gratitude awakened without the galling sense of obligation. She left more than sufficient for comfort for some weeks, and promised to send delicacies for the invalid. No word of herself passed her lips until they were once more in the narrow street. “Oh, Uncle Marc!” she said, “can it be true that he is so hard, so false to me?”

“Wait,” was the brief reply. They went into the wide court-yard in whose space stood the four great factories, the joint property of Marcus Wilkinson and Cyril Ormsby, long before divided by the entirely opposite management of these two into two distinct departments —one entirely under the control of the elder, the other of the young man. “Wilkinson’s absurd softheartedness,” as Cyril mentally characterized it, had made this division absolutely necessary. But it was not into his kindly-gov-erned, well-ordered departments that IVlnmm Willrinsrvm lftil his wand Ha turned into a small room, where a pale man was busily writing, and at the same time overlooking a long room, whereabout seventy girls wore at work before busily-whirling machinery. “Good-morning, Watkins,” the old gentleman said. “ I was in hopes that you were taking a holiday.” “Thank you, sir!” was the reply, in a dejected tone. “ I can’t well quit work, sir. There’s the wife and sixlittle ones, you see.” “ Have you told Mr. Ormsby the doctor says that your life depends upon a few weeks of rest and pure air?" “ Yes, sir. He’s not keeping me; but he says if I go ho must fill my placeanil that means starvation for my family. I could never get a new situation, as feeble as I am now.” “ How long have you been here, Mr. Watkins?” “ Seventeen years; sir. I was with old Mr. Ormsby before you came, sir.” ' “ A faithful servant seventeen years!” said Mr. Wilkinson, in a low tone; “ and a few weeks’ rest may save his life!” At this moment Millie shrank a little nearer her guardian. Through the window from which Mr. Watkins overlooked tho loom room, she could see Cyril Ormby, walking briskly about, his voice harsh and imperative, finding fault here and there, and keenly scrutinizing every item of the work. Not a face in the long room was brightened by the presence of the master. Fingers worked more rapidly, eves were fastened persistently upon the looms, and every one seemed aware of a stern taskmaster’s gaze. But Mr. Wilkinson obeyed the mute petition expressed in the looks of his ward, and led Millie out into the wide passages again, to another work-room. It were too tedious a task to follow every step of these two as they passed from room to room, everywhere meeting some assurance of Mr. Wilkinson’s own hold .upon the hearts of the “ hands,” and their terror of Cyril Ormsby’s harshness. Out again amongst the squalid homes, .where her guardian had no control, -bnt bus towed his kindly clarity without ostentation; and here, more eloquently than ever, Millie heard how cruel a mockery were all the schemes of charity and philanthrqpy that had been poured into her ears. It needed no spoken words from her guardian to tell her that the noble words uttered to win her were but those of hypocrisy, which knew how it could best plead its cause with her.

One and another, turning to Mr. Wilkinson as to a friend, unaware of the torture of their words to the kindly lady beside him, told of cruel exactions of work in sickness or trouble, of olosest calculation of time, of small wages and heavy rents. “ B we won’t livs here and pay, we get no work in the factories!” one said, when asked why lie did not seek a more healthy quarter. “lam doing overtime to pay for my child’s’funeral,” ono said, “for I lost the wages for three days. I stayed by her to see her die, and to bury her.” “I’m uneasy about the rent,” another said, “for l lost a week by a fall on the ice, and It’s hard making it up again.” ■ Not one word of kindly sympathy, of help, in trouble or sipkness. The “hands” under Cyril Ormsby. were simply human machines to do so much work, sick or well, pay the price of an hour or day at idleness, no matter how necessary.

There was no word spoken as Mr. Wilkinson and Millie walked to the office again Once there, the old gentleman spoke, very gravely. “As your guardian, ’ Millie, I can speak to you no word against Cyril Ormsby. He is a rich man, of good social position, of irreproachable moral reputation, and a man whose standing in business circles is of the highest. A man who is a good match in every worldly sense. So much for your guardian. As your friend, my pearl, who loves you as your own dead father might have lovrd you, who knows every noble impulse of your pure soul—as that friend, I tell you I would rather soo you lying beside your mother titan the broken-hearted wife of such a man as Cyril Ormsby," “ I came to you as a friend, as almost a father.” said Millie, “and I thank you for Keeping me from life-long misery. To know my husband such a man as I know Cvril Ormsby to be, would, as you say, break my heart.” “I would not tell you,” said her guardian, “for you knew I disliked him, and might have thought that dislike prejudiced me. But, Millie, tell me you will not let this day’s work shadow your life. You did not love Cyril, Millie?” “No, I reverenced what I believed a noble, generous nature. That reverence a mockery, I shall never break my heart for a man I thoroughly despise, Uncle Marc.” And so it happened that Cyril Ormsby, coming to claim the fortune ho believed within his grasp, met only Mr. Wilkinson, with Millie's polite but distinct refusal to resign herself or her fortune to his keeping. But he never knew how it was that Millie learned the true value of his hollow words of charity and philanthrophv.