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- Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
- Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
- Sprache: Englisch
In "A Daily Rate," Grace Livingston Hill weaves a poignant narrative centered on the transformative power of love and faith against the backdrop of early 20th-century America. This novel reflects Hill's characteristic literary style, which deftly combines elements of romance, moral didactics, and rich character development, indicative of the prevailing sentimental fiction of her time. Hill's adept use of vivid imagery and relatable protagonists captivates readers, drawing them into a world where personal sacrifice and spiritual growth take precedence amid the trials of everyday life. Grace Livingston Hill, often heralded as one of the pioneers of Christian romance fiction, had a deep-seated belief in the importance of faith and virtue, which shines through in her works. Born into a prominent family with a strong religious background, Hill's upbringing instilled in her a desire to explore themes of redemption and morality. Her prolific writing career, spurred by a passion to uplift and inspire, found its voice in stories that balance the challenges of human existence with the hope found in divine love. This gem of literature is recommended for readers seeking both inspiration and escapism. Hill's engaging storytelling, coupled with her nuanced portrayal of faith, makes "A Daily Rate" not just a novel, but a heartfelt journey into the resilience of the human spirit. For those who appreciate a timeless exploration of love intertwined with moral depth, this book is an essential addition to your collection. In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience: - A succinct Introduction situates the work's timeless appeal and themes. - The Synopsis outlines the central plot, highlighting key developments without spoiling critical twists. - A detailed Historical Context immerses you in the era's events and influences that shaped the writing. - A thorough Analysis dissects symbols, motifs, and character arcs to unearth underlying meanings. - Reflection questions prompt you to engage personally with the work's messages, connecting them to modern life. - Hand‐picked Memorable Quotes shine a spotlight on moments of literary brilliance. - Interactive footnotes clarify unusual references, historical allusions, and archaic phrases for an effortless, more informed read.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023
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A Daily Rate
Table of Contents
Introduction
A Daily Rate traces how steadfast faith, humble courage, and the accumulation of compassionate choices can push back against the bleak mathematics of paying one’s way by the day, transforming a drab boardinghouse existence into a sphere of purpose, dignity, and surprising possibility, as ordinary rooms, routine tasks, and frayed connections become the proving ground for integrity, service, and hope in a world where comfort is scarce, respect must be earned, and the next meal or month’s rent is never wholly assured, yet hearts learn to measure value by more than money and to invest in one another’s well-being.
Written by Grace Livingston Hill, a prolific American author of inspirational fiction active from the late nineteenth into the mid-twentieth century, A Daily Rate belongs to the tradition of domestic, faith-centered narratives with gentle romantic elements. Set within the practical constraints of a modest American boardinghouse, the novel situates readers amid bustling urban rhythms and the close quarters of shared living. Published in the early decades of the twentieth century, it reflects the period’s social textures—precarious employment, shifting neighborhoods, and changing roles for women—while offering the moral clarity and uplifting trajectory for which Hill’s work is widely known.
At its core is the story of a self-supporting woman navigating a home where rent is counted in small increments and privacy is a luxury. She shoulders wearying duties, observes the intersecting lives of fellow lodgers, and confronts a steady stream of practical problems: meals to prepare, rooms to manage, budgets to stretch, and frictions to ease. The premise is simple yet resonant: in a place defined by necessity and turnover, perseverance and compassion become acts of quiet rebellion. Readers encounter a cross-section of personalities and circumstances, each scene building a portrait of community forged by proximity, need, and emerging mutual care.
Hill’s voice is warm, earnest, and accessible, attentive to domestic detail without losing sight of spiritual stakes. The style favors clear narration over ornament, stitching together brief episodes that accumulate emotional weight. Dialogue and description move at a measured pace, inviting contemplation rather than spectacle. The mood balances realism about hardship with a calm expectation of goodness, allowing tension to arise from moral choices and everyday pressures rather than melodrama. The effect is an intimate reading experience: the table is set, the hallway whispers, the ledger waits to be tallied—and within those ordinary spaces, hearts are tested and transformed.
Themes emerge organically from the setting. The dignity of work, the sanctity of hospitality, and the power of kindness anchor the narrative, joined by explorations of stewardship, trust, and the cost of doing right when expediency tempts. Faith is portrayed not as abstraction but as habit and posture—how one treats a neighbor, keeps a promise, or orders a crowded day. The novel also probes class sensibilities and the unspoken rules of respectability, suggesting that true worth is discovered in service and sincerity. Even the economics of the house—its schedules, ledgers, and meals—become metaphors for accountability, dependence, and grace.
For contemporary readers, the book’s questions feel strikingly current: How do we hold onto compassion under financial strain? What does neighborliness mean when living spaces are shared and precarious? In an era of gig work and tenuous housing, the boardinghouse becomes a mirror, reflecting the resilience required to make do, the moral imagination needed to build community, and the discipline to choose integrity over convenience. The deliberate pace offers an antidote to cynicism, suggesting that change often arrives in increments—the tidied corridor, the fair price, the listening ear—and that such increments can accumulate into renewed purpose.
Approached as both story and reflection, A Daily Rate invites readers to inhabit the cadence of ordinary days and discover the drama woven into routine. It promises a gentle, grounding experience: not escapism, but the solace of seeing burdens named and met with courage. Those drawn to character-driven narratives, quiet romance threaded with conviction, and the textures of early twentieth-century domestic life will find much to appreciate. Without demanding grand gestures, the novel proposes that steadfastness is adventurous, that responsibility can be redemptive, and that a life measured in small payments can be rich in what truly counts.
Synopsis
A Daily Rate opens with a young woman arriving in a city boardinghouse, led there by necessity and a thin purse. The establishment is cheap, rented by the day, and it shows the wear of transience: faded furnishings, hurried meals, and tenants who keep to themselves. The landlady is harried, pressed by bills and shortages, and the rooms reflect a general air of resignation. The newcomer secures a modest room because it is all she can afford, intending to stay only briefly. Yet the loneliness of the place, the muted conversations at table, and the palpable discouragement stir her attention and shape her immediate impressions.
As she settles in, the young woman observes routines that barely hold the household together. The meals are graceless but sufficient, the cleaning perfunctory, and the tenants wary of entanglements. She notices small opportunities that might lift the atmosphere: a rearranged table, a swept hallway, a door mended instead of ignored. With practical thrift, she begins to make unobtrusive improvements, using little more than willing hands and careful planning. Her efforts are tentative at first, meant not to intrude, but to suggest that dignity is possible even in tight quarters. Quietly, her presence introduces the idea that life here need not be bleak.
The boardinghouse is a crossroads of modest lives: an older clerk fearful of losing work, a struggling seamstress, a convalescent with limited means, and a young man whose ambitions have been stalled by circumstance. The landlady, overwhelmed by debt and constant repairs, relies on the daily payments that trickle in. Each tenant struggles privately, accustomed to the rhythm of scarcity and the etiquette of silence. Through small kindnesses and attentive listening, the newcomer gains their trust. She learns the house’s unspoken rules and its sharper edges: gossip that wounds, habits that waste, and a resignation that makes improvement seem futile.
She begins to apply a simple principle, treating each day as a manageable portion of responsibility, a daily rate of effort and care. With the landlady’s consent, she suggests shared plans: standardized meal schedules, a rotating list of light chores, careful accounting of supplies, and better use of small spaces. Her focus on order is practical, not grand. She prefers fresh air and sunlight to expensive fix-ups, and careful budgeting to precarious credit. As errands are consolidated and tasks divided, the meals gain warmth, clutter recedes, and the parlor starts to feel like a common room instead of a passageway.
Resistance surfaces. A tenant resents change, the cost of staples spikes, and old grievances flare when routines tighten. An illness in the house tests nerves and resources, and a rumor threatens the fragile civility. The young woman faces these setbacks with discretion, adjusting plans while holding to the larger purpose. She refuses impulsive spending but also avoids punishing thrift that would sap morale. A quiet lodger, observant and steady, recognizes her tact and begins to assist in practical ways. Through these trials, the boardinghouse learns that small improvements are easily lost unless supported by patience, mutual respect, and steady oversight.
The story’s moral center clarifies as the household considers deeper needs than mended curtains and efficient menus. The newcomer’s convictions are evident in private habits and gentle words rather than sermons. She invites no one to change by compulsion; instead she models neighborliness, gratitude, and honest dealing. A habit of shared reading, a custom of mealtime courtesy, and a willingness to bear one another’s burdens gradually take root. The landlady, once defensive, grows receptive to counsel. The tenants begin to look beyond their own rooms, finding a measure of purpose in serving others within the close walls they share.
A financial crisis intensifies the stakes. An overdue payment threatens the lease, a creditor presses for settlement, and the margin created by careful economies proves dangerously thin. The newcomer coordinates efforts to raise funds and reduce waste: extra sewing, careful shopping, temporary work arranged through acquaintances, and a planned schedule to address repairs. The quiet lodger contributes knowledge of business practices, suggesting fair terms and timely communication. The household rallies, but the outcome remains uncertain. The narrative holds its tension by keeping the threat immediate while focusing on practical responses that test their new habits of cooperation and their commitment to one another.
Amid ongoing efforts, a gentle companionship develops between the young woman and the lodger who has stood by her work. Their understanding arises from shared labor, not declarations, and grows through measured conversations about duty, hope, and future plans. Meanwhile, the boarders’ lives show signs of renewal: prospects for employment, mended family ties, and a little more laughter in the evenings. Choices emerge for the heroine as opportunities beyond the boardinghouse appear. Whether she will remain at the center of this small community or move toward a new calling forms a quiet question that threads through the later chapters without breaking the story’s restraint.
By the close, the boardinghouse is plainly changed, though still modest, and the people in it are steadier, not suddenly prosperous. The narrative’s message is consistent: reform can proceed one day at a time, through thrift, kindness, and reliable work. The title’s idea becomes emblematic of the heroine’s approach to life—meeting obligations in daily portions, refusing both despair and extravagance. Without resorting to grand gestures, the book presents ordinary goodness as transformative. While final decisions and outcomes are left to unfold within the story, the synopsis points to a conclusion shaped by patience, responsibility, and hope grounded in the small fidelities of everyday living.
Historical Context
Set at the turn of the twentieth century and first published in 1900, A Daily Rate unfolds in an urban, middle-class milieu shaped by the late Gilded Age and the dawning Progressive Era. The narrative’s boardinghouse, situated in a Northeastern city typical of Philadelphia or New York, operates alongside electrified streetcars, department stores, and expanding church networks that characterized metropolitan life circa 1895–1905. Its routines, rules, and economies mirror the period’s compressed domestic spaces and the steady influx of commuters and clerks. Within this environment, the novel situates personal duty, thrift, and moral reform against the backdrop of crowded neighborhoods, rising service-sector work, and the social anxieties of rapid urban growth.
The book reflects the crest of American industrialization and urbanization after 1870, when cities such as New York, Philadelphia, and Boston swelled with workers from rural America and abroad. The 1900 U.S. Census recorded 30.2 million urban residents, up from 14.1 million in 1880. Transportation innovations accelerated this shift: Frank J. Sprague’s 1888 electric streetcar system in Richmond, Virginia, inspired widespread electrification, and by 1902 most urban lines had converted, enabling dense commuting corridors. The novel’s boardinghouse economy and tight schedules embody this world of time discipline and wage dependence, where hourly work, trolley commutes, and regimented meals anchored the social rhythms of city life.
The Panic of 1893 and its long depression (1893–1897) decisively shaped the social terrain the novel depicts. Triggered by railroad overbuilding and shaky silver-based finance, the crisis closed more than 500 banks and roughly 15,000 businesses in its first years; as many as one in five rail miles fell into receivership. National unemployment reached double digits, with contemporary estimates peaking near 18 percent in 1894. Wages fell, credit tightened, and families turned to boarding and taking in boarders as survival strategies. In this economy, respectable boardinghouses typically charged $3–$7 per week for room and board, while cheap lodging houses might cost 10–25 cents a night, and meals often ran 15–25 cents. Debts and weekly bills—coal, kerosene or gas, laundry, and foodstuffs—were paid in small, regular sums. A Daily Rate translates these macroeconomic pressures into daily arithmetic: the heroine’s emphasis on punctual payments, strict household management, and careful provisioning echoes the bookkeeping mentality many urban women adopted to stabilize precarious budgets after 1893. Her enforcement of rules, insistence on sobriety, and reorganization of domestic labor reflect how property owners and housekeepers protected thin margins. More broadly, the novel’s ethic of thrift and mutual obligation corresponds to the recovery period of the late 1890s, when savings clubs, church aid, and neighborhood credit informally supplemented strained wages. By foregrounding small, steady payments and contractual fairness, the book dramatizes the micro-level institutions—house rules, agreed daily rates, and community oversight—that emerged as practical bulwarks against the volatility unleashed by the decade’s financial convulsions.
Housing reform and the settlement-house movement provided an important social frame. Jacob Riis’s How the Other Half Lives (1890) documented New York tenements, and the New York State Tenement House Act of 1901 mandated air shafts, fireproofing, and inspection, signaling a nationwide push for safer dwellings. Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr founded Hull House in Chicago in 1889; Lillian Wald established Henry Street Settlement in New York in 1893. While A Daily Rate centers a respectable boardinghouse rather than a tenement, its concern with cleanliness, order, and neighborly oversight mirrors reformist ideals that sought to redeem urban domestic life through practical regulation and civic-minded care.
The temperance crusade stood at the forefront of late nineteenth-century social politics. The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, founded in 1874, claimed over 150,000 members by the 1890s, while the Anti-Saloon League (organized nationally in 1895 from an 1893 Ohio base) perfected lobbying for local-option dry laws. States such as Kansas (constitutional prohibition, 1881) pioneered restrictive regimes that spread via county and municipal campaigns. A Daily Rate reflects temperance’s cultural authority by presenting alcohol as a destabilizer of household economies and moral order. House rules against drinking, the valorization of self-control, and the redemption of wayward boarders encode the era’s conviction that sobriety underwrote civic respectability and financial solvency.
Transformations in women’s work and authority are central to the book’s world. By 1900, approximately 5.3 million women were gainfully employed in the United States, clustered in domestic service, textiles, teaching, clerical work, and small proprietorships. Urban households frequently mixed wage labor with home-based enterprise; the 1890 census recorded substantial numbers of families taking in boarders, and in some city wards over one-third of residents lived as lodgers at some point. Grace Livingston Hill’s own biography underscores this context: after the death of her first husband in 1899, she supported her family through writing. The novel’s competent female manager channels this reality, modeling respectable female economic agency within Protestant moral boundaries.
Religious activism, from revivalism to urban missions, permeated the period. Dwight L. Moody’s mass campaigns in the 1870s–1890s, the Salvation Army’s American work from 1880 onward, and the Charity Organization Society movement (New York, 1882) promoted disciplined charity and personal regeneration. The Social Gospel, evident in pastoral work in industrial neighborhoods during the 1890s, linked faith to structural reform in sanitation, labor, and housing. A Daily Rate aligns with this religious landscape through its emphasis on conversion, conscience, and service. Its boardinghouse becomes a microcosm of mission practice, where humane oversight, fair dealing, and moral suasion aim to elevate individuals while strengthening the community.
As social and political critique, the novel exposes the fragility of urban livelihoods and the moral costs of laissez-faire indifference. It highlights how weekly rents, erratic wages, and alcohol could erode families, thereby indicting the era’s tolerance of predatory habits and inadequate oversight of housing and public vice. By elevating a woman’s managerial authority, it questions gendered limits on economic stewardship while affirming the civic value of disciplined care. The book’s praise of transparent contracts, clean premises, and mutual accountability implicitly endorses Progressive-Era reforms—temperance, housing inspection, and organized charity—as necessary correctives to the inequalities and risks of the fin de siècle city.
A Daily Rate
Chapter 1
The world would not have looked quite so dreary to her perhaps, if it had not been her birthday. Somehow one persists in expecting something unusual to happen on a birthday, no matter how many times one has had nothing but disappointment.
Not that Celia Murray was really expecting anything, even a letter, on this birthday, though she did stand shivering in the half light of the dim, forlorn front room that served as a parlor for Mrs. Morris’ boarding-house, watching for the postman to reach their door. She did it merely because she wished to be near, to get the letter at once,—provided there was a letter,—and not that she really hoped for one.
It was Saturday evening, and the close of a half holiday in the store in which she usually stood all day long as saleswoman. The unusual half day off was on account of some parade in the city. Celia had not spent her afternoon at the parade. Instead, she had been in her small, cold, back bedroom on the third story, attending to various worn garments which needed mending. They had been spread out on the bed in a row, and she had gone steadily down the line putting a few stitches here, a button there, and setting in a patch in another, counting every minute of daylight hoping to finish her work before it faded, for the gas in her room was dim, the burner being old and worn out. She tried to be cheerful over the work. She called it her “dress parade.” She knew it was the best way in which to accomplish as much as she wished to do.
And now it was six o’clock, and she had turned down the wretched, flickering light in her room and descended to the parlor to watch for the postman.
He was late to-night, probably on account of the parade. She leaned her forehead against the cold glass and looked out into the misty darkness. Everything was murky and smoky. The passers-by seemed tired and in a hurry. Some had their collars turned up. She wondered where they were all going, and whether there were pleasant homes awaiting them. She let her imagination picture the homes of some. There was a young working man hurrying along with breezy step and swinging dinner pail. He had not been to the parade. His parade was at home awaiting his coming,—a laughing baby, a tidy wife, and the house redolent of fried onions and sausage. She had passed houses often at night where these odors were streaming forth from quickly opened and closed doors. The young man would like it; it would be pleasant to him. And the thought brought no less cheer to the watching girl because to her this supper would not be in the least appetizing.
There passed by a strong Old German, a day laborer perhaps. She pictured the table full of noisy children of various ages, and the abundance of sauerkraut and cheese and coffee and other viands set out. Then came a stream of girls, some clerks like herself, and some mill girls. On other evenings they would present a different appearance, but many of them to-night were in holiday attire on account of the half-holiday which had been generally given throughout the city. These girls, some of them, had homes of more or less attractiveness, and others, like herself, were domiciled in boarding-houses. She sat down on one of the hard haircloth chairs and looked around that parlor. In the dimness of the turned down gas, it appeared more forlorn than usual. The ingrain carpet had long ago lost any claims to respectability. It had a dragged out, sodden appearance, and in places there were unmistakable holes. These, it is true, had been twisted and turned about so as to come mostly under the tables and sofa, but they were generally visible to the casual observer. The parlor suite of haircloth, by reason of being much sat upon, had lost the spring of youth, and several of the chairs and one end of the sofa looked like fallen cake. There was an asthmatic cabinet organ at the end of the room which had been left by some departing boarder, (under compulsion) in lieu of his board. There were a few worn pieces of music scattered upon it. Celia knew that the piece now open on the top was that choice selection “The Cat Came Back[1],” which was a great favorite with a young railroad brakeman who had a metallic tenor voice and good lungs. He was one of the boarders and considered quite a singer in the house. There was a feeble attempt at the aesthetic in the form of a red, bedraggled chenille portiere at the doorway, bordered with large pink cabbage roses. The mantel had a worn plush scarf embroidered in a style quite out of date and ugly in the extreme. On it stood a large glass case of wax flowers, several cheap vases, and a match safe. Over it hung a crayon portrait of the landlady’s departed husband, and another of herself adorned the opposite wall, both done in staring crayon work from tin types of ancient date, heavily and cheaply framed. These with a marriage certificate of the clasped-hand-and-orange-wreath order, framed in gilt, made up the adornments of the room.
Celia sighed as she looked about and took it all in once more. It was a dreary place. She had been in it but a week. Would she ever get used to it? She did not curl her lip in scorn as many other girls would have done over that room and its furnishings. Neither did she feel that utter distaste that is akin to hatred. Instead was a kind of pity in her heart for it all, and for the poor lonely creatures who had no other place to call home. Where there is such pity, there is sometimes love not far away. She even rose, went to the doorway and looped the loose, discouraged folds of the chenille curtain in more graceful fashion. Somehow her fingers could not help doing so much toward making that room different.
Then she sighed and went to the window again. She could see the belated postman now across the street. She watched him as he flitted back and forth, ringing this bell and that, and searching in the great leather bag for papers or packages. His breath showed white against the dark greyish-blue of the misty evening air. His grey uniform seemed to be a part of the mist. The yellow glare of the street-lamp touched the gilt buttons and made a bright spot of the letters on his cap as he paused a moment to study an address before coming to their door.
Celia opened the door before he had time to ring and took the letters from his hand. There were not many. The boarders in that house had not many correspondents. She stepped into the parlor once more, and turned up the gas now for a moment to see if there were any for herself. Strange to say, there were two, rather thin and unpromising it is true, but they gave a little touch of the unusual to the dull day. She noticed that one bore a familiar postmark and was in her aunt’s handwriting. The other held the city mark and seemed to be from some firm of lawyers. She did not feel much curiosity concerning it. It was probably some circular. It did not look in the least interesting. She pushed them both quickly into her pocket as the front door opened letting in several noisy boarders. She did not wish to read her letters in public. They would keep till after supper. The bell was already ringing. It would not be worthwhile to go upstairs before she went to the dining-room. Experience taught her that the supper was at its very worst the minute after the bell rang. If one waited one must take the consequences, and “the consequences” were not desirable. The meals in that house were not too tempting at any time. Not that she cared much for her supper, she was too weary, but one must eat to live, and so she went to the dining-room.
Out there the gas was turned to its highest. The coarse tablecloth was none of the cleanest. In fact, it reminded one of former breakfasts and dinners. The thick white dishes bore marks of hard usage. They were nicked and cracked. There were plates of heavy, sour-looking bread at either end of the table. The butter looked mussy and uninviting. The inevitable, scanty supply of prunes stood before the plate of the young German clerk, who was already in his chair helping himself to a liberal dish. The clerk was fond of prunes, and always got to the table before anyone else. Some of the others good-naturedly called him selfish, and frequently passed meaningful remarks veiled in thin jokes concerning this habit of his; but if he understood he kept the matter to himself, and was apparently not thin-skinned.
There was a stew for dinner that night. Celia dreaded stews since the night of her arrival when she had found a long curly hair on her plate in the gravy. There were such possibilities of utility in a stew. It was brought on in little thick white dishes, doled out in exact portions. There were great green fat pickles, suggesting copper in their pickling and there was a plate of cheese and another of crackers. A girl brought each one a small spoonful of canned corn, but it was cold and scarcely cooked at all, and the kernels were large and whole. Celia having tasted it, pushed her dish back and did not touch it again. On the side table was a row of plates each containing a slim, thin piece of pale-crusted pie, its interior being dark and of an undefined character. Celia tried to eat. The dishes were not all clean. Her spoon had a sticky handle and so had her fork. The silver was all worn off the blade of her knife, and she could not help thinking that perhaps it was done by being constantly used to convey food to the mouth of the brakeman with the tenor voice.
One by one the boarders drifted in. It was surprising how quickly they gathered after that bell rang. They knew what they had to depend upon in the way of bread and butter, and it was first come first served. Little Miss Burns sat across the table from Celia. She was thin and nervous and laughed a good deal in an excited way, as if everything were unusually funny, and she were in a constant state of embarrassing apology. There were tired little lines around her eyes, and her mouth still wore a baby droop, though she was well along in years. Celia noticed that she drank only a cup of tea and nibbled a cracker. She did not look well. It was plain the dinner was no more appetizing to her than to the young girl who had so recently come there to board. She ought to have some delicate thin slices of nicely browned toast and a cup of tea with real cream in it, and a fresh egg poached just right, or a tiny cup of good strong beef bouillon, Celia said to herself. She amused herself by thinking how she would like to slip out in the kitchen and get them for her, only—and she almost smiled at the thought—she would hardly find the necessary articles with which to make all that out in the Morris kitchen.
Next to Miss Burns sat two young girls, clerks in a three-cent store. They carried a good deal of would-be style, and wore many bright rings on their grimy fingers, whose nails were never cleaned nor cut apparently—except by their teeth. These girls were rather pretty in a coarse way, and laughed and talked a good deal in loud tones with the tenor brakeman, whose name was Bob Yates, and with the other young men boarders. These young men were respectively a clerk in a department store, a student in the University, and a young teacher in the public schools. Celia noticed that neither the student nor the school-teacher ate heartily, and that the young dry goods salesman had a hollow cough. How nice it would be if they all could have a good dinner just for once, soup and roast beef, and good bread and vegetables, with a delicious old-fashioned apple dumpling smoking hot, such as her aunt Hannah could make. How she would enjoy giving it to them all. How she would like to eat some of it herself! She sighed as she pushed back her plate with a good half of the stew yet untouched, and felt that it was impossible to eat another mouthful of that. The she felt ashamed to think she cared so much for mere eating, and tried to talk pleasantly to the little old lady beside her, who occupied a small dismal room on the third floor and seemed to stay in it most of the time. Celia had not yet found out her occupation nor her standing in society, but she noticed that she trembled when she tried to cut her meat, and she was shabbily clothed in rusty black that looked as if it had served its time out several times over.
Mrs. Morris came into the dining-room when the pie was being served. She was large and worried-looking, and wore a soiled calico wrapper without a collar. Her hair had not been combed since morning and some locks had escaped in her neck and on her forehead and added to her generally dejected appearance. She sat down heavily and wearily at the head of the table, and added her spiritless voice to the conversation. She asked them all how they enjoyed the parade and declared it would have been enough parade for her if she could have “set down for a couple of hours.” Then she sighed and drank a cup of tea from her saucer, holding the saucer on the palm of her hand.
It all looked hopelessly dreary to Celia. And here she expected to spend the home part of her life for several years at least, or if not here, yet in some place equally destitute of anything which constitutes a home.
Except for her brief conversation with the old lady on her right, and a few words to Miss Burns, she had spoken to no one during the meal, and as soon as she had excused herself from the pie and folded her napkin, she slipped upstairs to her room, for the thought of the two letters in her pocket seemed more inviting than the pie. She turned the gas to its highest though it did screech, that she might see to read her letters, and then she drew them forth. Her aunt Hannah’s came first. She tore the envelope. Only one sheet and not much written thereon. Aunt Hannah was well, but very busy, for Nettie’s children were all down with whooping cough and the baby had been quite sick, poor little thing, and she had no time to write. Hiram, Nettie’s husband, too, had been ill and laid up for a week, so aunt Hannah had been nursing night and day. She enclosed a little bookmark to remember Celia’s birthday. She wished she could send her something nice, but times were hard and Celia knew she had no money, so she must take it out in love.
Hiram’s sickness and the doctor’s bills made things close for Nettie or she would have remembered the birthday, too, perhaps. Aunt Hannah felt that it was hard to have to be a burden on Nettie, now when the children were young and she and Hiram needed every cent he could earn, but what else could she do? She sent her love to her dear girl, however, and wanted her to read the verse on the little ribbon enclosed and perhaps it would do her good. She hoped Celia had a nice comfortable “homey” place to board and would write soon.
That was all. The white ribbon bookmark was of satin and bore these words:
“His allowance was a continual allowance . . . a daily rate. 2 Kings xxv.30,” and beneath in small letters:
“Charge not thyself with the weight of a year,
Child of the Master, faithful and dear,
Choose not the cross for the coming week[1q],
For that is more than he bids thee seek.
Bend not thine arms for to-morrow’s load,
Thou mayest leave that to thy gracious God,
Daily, only he says to thee,
‘Take up thy cross and follow me.’”
Chapter 2
Celia read the words over mechanically. She was not thinking so much of what they said, as she was of what her aunt had written, or rather of what she had not written, and what could be read between the lines, by means of her knowledge of that aunt and her surroundings. In other words Celia Murray was doing exactly what the words on the white ribbon told her not to do. She was charging herself “with the weight of a year.” She had picked up the cross of the coming months and was bending under it already.
Her trouble was aunt Hannah[2]. Oh, if she could but do something for her. She knew very well that that little sentence about being a burden on Nettie meant more than aunt Hannah would have her know. She knew that aunt Hannah would never feel herself a burden on her niece Nettie,—for whom she had slaved half her life, and was still slaving, unless something had been said or done to make her feel so; and Celia, who never had liked her cousin-in-law, Hiram, at any time, for more reasons than mere prejudice, knew pretty well who it was that had made good, faithful, untiring aunt Hannah feel that she was a burden.
Celia’s eyes flashed, and she caught her hands in each other in a quick convulsive grasp. “Oh, ill could but do something to get aunt Hannah out of that and have her with me!” she exclaimed aloud. “But here am I with six dollars and a half a week; paying out four and a quarter for this miserable hole they call a home; my clothes wearing out just as fast as they can, and a possibility hanging over me that I may not suit and may be discharged at any time. How can I ever get ahead enough to do anything[2q]!”
She sat there thinking over her life and aunt Hannah’s. Her own mother and Nettie’s mother had died within a year of each other. They were both aunt Hannah’s sisters. Mr. Murray did not long survive his wife, and Celia had gone to live with her cousins who were being mothered by aunt Hannah, then a young, strong, sweet woman. Her uncle, Mr. Harmon, had been a hardworking, silent man who supplied the wants of his family as well as he could, but that had not always been luxuriously, for he had never been a successful man. The children had grown fast and required many things. There were five of his own and Celia, who had shared with the rest,—though never really getting her share, because of her readiness to give up and the others’ readiness to take what she gave up. Somehow the Harmon children had a streak of selfishness in them, and they always seemed willing that aunt Hannah and Celia should take a back seat whenever anyone had to do so, which was nearly all the time. Celia never resented this for herself, even in her heart; but for aunt Hannah she often did so. That faithful woman spent the best years of her life, doing for her sister’s children as if they had been her own, and yet without the honor of being their mother, and feeling that the home was her own. She had never married, she was simply aunt Hannah, an excellent housekeeper, and the best substitute for a mother one could imagine. As the children grew up they brought all their burdens to aunt Hannah to bear, and when there were more than she could conveniently carry, they would broadly hint that it was Celia’s place to help her, for Celia was the outsider, the dependent, the moneyless one. It had fallen to her lot to tend the babies till they grew from being tended into boys, and then to follow after and pick up the things they left in disorder in their wake. It was she who altered the girls’ dresses to suit the style, and fashioned dainty hats from odds and ends, turning and pressing them over to make them as good as new for some special occasion. And then when it came her turn, it was she who had to stay at home, because she had nothing to wear, and no time to make it over, and nothing left to make over, because she had given it all to the others.
Then had come the day—not so many weeks ago: Celia remembered it as vividly as though it had happened but yesterday; she had gone over the details so many times they were burned upon her brain. And yet, how long the time really had been and how many changes had conic! The boy came up from the office with a scared face to say that something had happened to Mr. Harmon, and then they had brought him home and the family all too soon learned that there was no use in trying to resuscitate him,—all hope had been over before he was taken from the office. Heart failure, they said! And instantly following upon this had come that other phrase, “financial failure[3],” and soon the orphans found they were penniless. This was not so bad for the orphans, for they were fully grown and the girls were both married. The three boys all had good positions and could support themselves. But what of aunt Hannah and Celia? Nettie and Hiram had taken aunt Hannah into their family, ill-disguising the fact that she was asked because of the help she could give in bringing up and caring for the children, but Celia had understood from the first that there was no place for her.
She had been given a good education with the others, that is, a common school course followed by a couple of years in the High School. She had her two hands and her brights wits and nothing else. A neighbor had offered to use her influence with a friend of a friend of a partner in a city store, and the result was her position. She had learned since she came that it was a good one as such things went. She had regular hours for meals and occasional holidays, and her work was not heavy. She felt that she ought to be thankful. She had accepted it, of course, there was nothing else to be done, but she had looked at aunt Hannah with a heavy heart and she knew aunt Hannah felt it as keenly. They had been very close to each other, these two, who had been separated from the others, in a sense, and had burdens to bear. Perhaps their sense of loneliness in the world had made them cling the more to each other. Celia would have liked to be able to say “Aunt Hannah, come with me. I can take care of you now. You have cared for me all my life, now I will give you a home and rest.” Ah! if that could have been! Celia drew her breath quickly, and the tears came between the closed lids. She knew if she once allowed the tears full sway, they would not stay till they had swept all before them, and left her in no fit state to appear before those dreadful, inquisitive boarders, or perhaps even to sell ribbons in Dobson and Co.’s on Monday. No, she must not give way. She would read that other letter and take her mind from these things, for certain it was that she could do nothing more now than she had done, except to write aunt Hannah a cheering letter, which she could not do unless she grew cheerful herself.
So she opened the other letter.
It was from Rawley and Brown, a firm of lawyers on Fifth Street, desiring to know if she was Celia Murray, daughter of Henry Dean Murray of so forth and so on, and if she was, would she please either write or call upon them at her earliest possible convenience, producing such evidences of her identity as she possessed.
The girl laughed as she read it over again. “The idea!” she said, talking aloud to herself again as she had grown into the habit of doing since she was alone, just to feel as
