Rain, rain—nothing but rain on this Christmas Eve, in the New South Wales metropolis. Although it was in the heat of summer the wind from the coast blew keenly through the almost deserted streets, and caused the fine mist-like wet to penetrate the stoutest overcoat. It was such weather that no one who had a roof over his head would care to be out in. But there was one wearily toiling from street to street, beneath the protection of the verandahs—a delicate-looking girl. With one hand she was trying to wrap her scanty rags round her wasted body, and in the other she held a half-dozen boxes of wax matches. Her face was worn, and pinched, and dirty, but it was a very beautiful, patient, little face; her hair, too, would have been a bright golden in natural hue, save that it was shaggy and dirty also. It was to little purpose that she offered her matches to the passers-by, who were few and far between on this wet evening—they were all too anxious to get home out of the rain. From the brightly lighted streets the little wanderer crossed Hyde Park, and wended her way slowly up Oxford Street, and from thence to the left, along the Bay Road, where dwell the wealthy and the great. Why she had left the shops and all the busy part of the city for the wide, bleak road, dotted with high, massive houses standing out dark and cold in the falling rain, the poor child could not tell. Impelled by some strange fascination, she had quitted her usual haunts, and taken the opposite direction leading from her wretched home. Although it was getting late, and past the time when she should have returned, she had no thought of going home. Her memory was full of faint, indistinct thoughts, whether dreams or faraway realities, who shall say? She wondered why she had rambled so far from the city; but she also felt she must go on. Her ragged dress was soaked with rain and the keen wind was cruel and cutting, yet the poor little thing did not feel the rain or the wind; on the contrary, she felt as if she was on fire, save now and then there would pass a cold feeling all over her, which caused a shivering fit. The match girl was well aware that she would be beaten when she returned to her wretched dwelling, yet, strange to say, she felt perfectly happy as she wandered farther away from it.
Half way up the Bay Road there came over the little waif a feeling of dizziness, accompanied by a feeling of thirst, and again that burning sensation which again changed into a cold shiver, as she stood there. Close at hand there was a friendly porch belonging to a grand mansion, so the child crept into it, out of the wind and rain, and crouched down. No sooner had she done so than all her light-heartedness appeared to leave her, and she burst into tears. It was very strange that directly the little match vendor began to cry she heard a confusion of sounds around her—wild, mocking laughter, and shouts, and stamping of feet, and strange lights were dancing before her eyes. The stones on which she was lying seemed to be heaving and tossing, and she felt very frightened just for a moment, and then she fell fast asleep.
These sounds still went on in her slumber, but they gradually got softer and softer, and sweeter and more subdued, until they changed into the most lovely music. And the little outcast thought she was standing in the midst of a very beautiful garden, and somehow it appeared to her that she had known it all a long time ago. The rain and wind and the murky clouds had passed away, and it was glorious, sunny day; the flowers were in full bloom. Voices of birds and insects filled the balmy air, and gay coloured butterflies flitted here and there. While she was standing, wondering that all these strange things should seem so familiar to her, a handsome boy, with golden curls, approached, and exclaimed,—
“Oh, dear sister Nellie, come and play. Why did you go away and stay away so long?”
The dreamer looked up; she appeared to know the happy face quite well, and she assured him in a voice, that was not like her old thin, weak voice, but soft and clear, which seemed like a voice that had belonged to her a long, long time ago,—
“Indeed, I don’t know where I have been, Frank; nor why I went away. Is it a long time since?” she asked timidly.
“Such a long time, sister.”
“I am here at last, Frank; and I will never go away again. Come, let us play in the garden.” And then she took his hand, and they walked on together amongst the flowers, while the thousand voices round about gave gladsome welcome. All the old miserable life of the beggar child seemed to fade quickly away here, leaving nothing save the feeling that she had always been accustomed to the grand objects by which she found herself surrounded.
“Suppose we have a game of hide and seek?” suggested Frank.
“That will be very nice; but who shall hide first?”
They had a little consultation about that very important matter, when it was decided that Nellie should hide first. It was most peculiar that the name Nellie came quite natural to the dreamer, though she had been called Maggie, Meg, and sometimes Peggy as long as she could remember.
So Nellie went to hide, and she hid behind a rosebush, and there she found a great hole in the ground big enough for her to creep into. Ere she had settled herself, Nellie found that the hole led to a dark passage, with a soft light glimmering at the end of it. Still wondering, she went towards the light. Passing along through several archways, the child emerged into a splendid cavern, lit up with many coloured, sparkling lights from thousands of precious stones, with which the sides and roof of the place were studded. While she was standing awe-struck with amazement at this magnificent place, she heard by her side a flutter of light wings, and turning, saw hovering over her a beautiful little creature with long hair, which glittered like woven sunbeams. The form was rose-hued in colour, and from its shoulders sprang green wings, sheeny and lustrous as the throat of a humming-bird.
“THE LOVELY BEING TOOK NELLIE BY THE HAND.”
“Come!” warbled the being, and the voice was dreamy and sweet, like the “coo” of a stock dove. “Come, and I will show you something wonderful.”
And the lovely being took Nellie by the hand, and led the child through a cleft in the rock toanother room which was lined, roof, walls, and floor, with soft green moss. All round the room were hung beautiful garlands adorned with diamonds. Some fairly blazed again with gems, others contained only a few, fixed here and there, while fairy-like forms flitted to and fro continually, bearing in their hands more gems, which they fixed into the garlands. The dreamer was very much surprised at what she beheld.
“Where do they get all those diamonds to put into the garlands?” she inquired of her companion.
“The diamonds,” answered her conductor, “are the tears of sorrow shed by the unhappy people in the world; for always while they are weeping there are unseen watchers ready waiting to receive their tears and convey them here.”
“And what are those very large gems, that shine so brightly in the middle of the finished garlands?”
“Those are tears of joy; no garland can be finished without them.”
The child wandered round the chamber, and saw that almost all the wreaths had some tears of joy and some of sorrow; but she came at last to one that was quite full of tears of sorrow and in it no tears of joy at all, while on it was a name, “Peggy the Beggar.”
Scarcely had her eyes fallen upon the name than she awoke; awoke, and beheld bending over her a lady with a lovely face; but she looked proud and stern, and the little wanderer instinctively shrank away from her and crouched closer to the wall.
“How very tiresome that this wretched child should choose my porch, of all places, to creep into for shelter,” cried the lady, in a cold, unfeeling tone. “Yet I cannot turn the unfortunate thing away on such a night as this. It’s a poor Christmas indeed for the poor child,” she added, in a more tender way. “Here, Smith, take up this little beggar and carry her to the kitchen, give her something to eat, and tell Jane to put some dry things on her.”
A tall servant came forward and lifted the ragged bundle of humanity in his arms as tenderly as a mother would have done. The man had just such another little girl at home, and his heart yearned with sympathy for the outcast as he bore her along the great hall of the house. Certainly the place was strange to the child; but as in her dream she seemed to remember everything, so now it appeared to her that the objects upon which she gazed had been familiar to her a long, long time ago, and her dream came backto her so vividly that she cried out aloud, “Oh, Frank! Frank! Dear brother, where are you hiding? Do come to me. Come to sister Nellie. I am not playing now.”
The stern lady had followed her servant with his living burden; but when that cry reached her she stopped short, and grasped at the wall for support. What sudden spasm caused the beautiful, haughty face to grow instantly pale, and the tall form to bend trembling down as if struck with palsy?
“Oh, Frank, come to sister Nellie. Dear brother, come.”
With a wild, hysterical sob the stately figure bowed lower yet, and pressed her arms upon her throbbing bosom as if each of the little outcast’s words had been cruel dagger-thrusts that were piercing her through and through.
Coldness, pride, the vigorous will, that moulds martyrs and devils alike, was strong within the woman, yet the combination of all three had no power against that weak out-cry—“Come to sister Nellie, Frank!”
Ere the low, faint wail had died out, the proud lady had snatched the poor child to her bosom, and covering the hot, unwashed face with passionate kisses, cried aloud,—
“I—I had a darling Nellie once, and a golden-hairedboy also, whom we called Frank, but they were buds that faded here to bloom in heaven. And now their dear voices will never fall upon my ears again. Alas! Alas!”
Then like all else she had seen in this place, it seemed to the child that the face of the beautiful lady was not altogether strange to her. The very caress was like the endearing embrace of a mother, whose heart had longed and yearned for her lost ones, and the poor little outcast wondered how it all could be, until she lost all consciousness and began to dream again.