Mr. Stanley was a merchant in a large
city, which I will not tell my young readers the name of, but
will tell them about it. This city was not on the sea-shore,
but a good way from it. Yet on one side of it was a large
river running into the sea--so wide and deep, that not only
boats, but great ships, and steam-boats could come from the
sea quite up to the city, and bring merchandize for the people
from all parts of the world. On the opposite side of the city
was another river, smaller than the first, where large ships
could not swim, but only small boats and small steamers. Yet
it was a very pretty river and emptied into the big one a few
miles below the city. There were a great many handsome
buildings here, both public and private; several large
handsome parks with fine trees in them; and many years ago the
national government used to meet here and when the Chief
Magistrate was one of the best and and greatest men that ever
lived in the world, and was called by every one the
"Father of his Country." Now, my young readers, can
you guess the name of this city?
Well, Mr. Stanley, who lived here, was a
rich merchant, and lived in a large, handsome house, which had
elegant furniture in it; and pictures, and books, and a
thousand, other nice things. Yet he was not proud, as rich
people sometimes are. He did not despise poor people because
they worked with their hands, and wore coarse clothes, and
lived in small houses. He was very gracious and kind to all,
and when people were unfortunate and sick and needy, he would
visit them and encourage them, and get a doctor for them, and
give them food, clothes and fuel. Mrs. Stanley was a very good
lady, and did just as Mr. Stanley did in these things.
They had two children, Ellen, who was
thirteen years old, and Charles, who was eleven. They were
nice looking, good children, for their excellent parents had
always brought them up carefully, and treated them very
affectionately, so that the children loved them dearly and
could not bear to do anything wrong to make them sad. They
learned to act just as they saw their father and mother
acting, and thus they must be amiable, good, kind children.
There was a little girl, about nine
years old, who used to go about the streets selling flowers in
the season of them. She was a very modest, well-behaved,
pretty child, though rather coarse and poor. She often came to
Mr. Stanley's house, and cried her flowers, and Ellen and
Charley used to go out and buy very generously, at the same
time talking with her kindly. Mr. and Mrs. Stanley also,
sometimes called her into the house, and questioned her about
herself and family. She said her name was Florence Carter;
that her father was dead, and her mother lived in a chamber in
another part of the city and made shirts and collars, but that
she was in poor health and often had to lie down; and that
she, who was an only child, went about selling flowers to help
her sick mother. The first time Mr. Stanley heard the child's
voice, which was very sweet, he was struck and touched, he
could not tell why. Something, too, in her looks and her
peculiar name, Florence, startled him and reminded him of
something, he could not remember what; only sometimes it
seemed to him that the name and look were familiar. He and
also Mrs. Stanley, at these times, used to send Ellen, with
the little girl, into the kitchen, that she might get
something to eat, and also to give her a basket of food to
carry home to her mother. You would, perhaps, have thought
that Mr. and Mrs. Stanley, being such kind people as I have
told you, would have gone to Florence's home to see the sick
woman. But many things prevented, I don't know exactly what
they were; and cold weather coming, the flower girl was no
longer to be seen.
But one bitter, snowy night, the little
girl came to Mr. Stanley's house, looking thinner and paler
than ever, and shivering with cold. Sobbing as if her heart
would break, she begged of him to go and see her poor, dear
mother; that she was very sick, and they had no doctor and no
fire, and nothing to eat.
Mr. Stanley and his wife both prepared
to go. But first Ellen took Florence down in the kitchen and
warmed and fed her, and dressed her in some of her own warm
clothes. Mr. Stanley then called a carriage, and they all got
in and rode to the sick woman's dwelling. It was in a wretched
looking street, and the house where they stopped was old and
shattered. They went up into Mrs. Carter's room, which
appeared very dismal, though every thing was perfectly neat.
The floor was bare; and on a poor bed, with but scanty
covering, lay the poor woman burning with fever, and looking
so thin, that you would have thought there was scarcely any
life left in her.
When Mr. Stanley and his wife came to
the bed-side with the light, the sick woman, looking up in his
face, seemed startled and said feebly, "Who are you, kind
sir?"
"My name is Stanley," replied
he.
"What, Robert Stanley?" said
she.
When he answered yes, she seemed very
much agitated, but was silent.
"Why do you ask?" he said.
She paused for a while, and then said.
"Do you remember your sister Harriet?"
"Remember," he exclaimed,
"my dear sister, the loving friend of my boyhood, who was
a real mother to me after my own mother was taken away! Have I
ever for a moment forgotten her? But why do you ask?"
"Because I am that sister
Harriet!"
"You!" exclaimed he. "Why
I thought you had been dead, it is so many years since we
heard of you. But how is this? Why do I find you here and in
this condition, and why have you never come to me."
"I can't tell you all now,"
she replied. "I am too weak."
"Say not a word," answered Mr.
Stanley, "till you are in a different state. Meanwhile
you must go home with me." Calling up the stout hackman,
the two carried the sick one down stairs, on the bed, and
placed her in the carriage, which was driven straight to Mr.
Stanley's house.
Mrs. Carter was at once placed in a nice
room, a doctor was called in, and she received all possible
help with the kindest treatment. She soon got better, for want
and grief caused her sickness almost wholly. A few days after,
she told Mr. Stanley her story, which was a long one. I shall
give the substance of it in a few words of my own.
Harriet Stanley was several years older
than her brother Robert, and after their mother's death, had,
as he said, been a second mother to him. When she was
nineteen, she became attached to Dr. Chapman, a young
gentleman of her native city, who had just finished his
medical studies, and was going to settle in his profession in
one of the Southern States. Dr. Chapman asked the consent of
old Mr. Stanley to the marriage. But the old man, who was hard
and stern and thought riches the most important thing in the
world, was very angry at what he called the young man's
impudence in asking his daughter in marriage, when he was
poor. So he forbade the Doctor his house, and commanded his
daughter to have noting to say to him.
The young people were very much grieved,
and after waiting a while, in hopes Mr. Stanley would become
softened, they determined to marry without his consent. They
did so, and set forth for the south-west. They had been there
but a short time, when Dr. Chapman caught the yellow fever and
died, leaving the young wife destitute. A kind planter's
family in the neighborhood, named Carter, pitying the bereaved
young widow, offered her a place in their family, as governess
to two little girls. She gladly accepted the office and soon
became a favorite with the whole family.
Edward Carter, a noble young man, loved
her, and after a year or more, offered his hand. She accepted
it and they were married, and for several years were very
happy.
Meanwhile, old Mr. Stanley was in a
great rage at his daughter's marriage with Dr. Chapman, and
for a long time, used to heap all sorts of abuse and harsh
names upon her, before his whole family, and forbade any of
them ever writing her.
Harriet, knowing her father's temper,
supposed he must have poisoned even her young brother's mind
against her, and so she never wrote home. Thus, for many
years, all connection between herself and her family were
broken off, and she knew not whether they were living or dead.
Some years after her second marriage,
she was left a second time a widow. She and her husband had
always lived on the plantation and in the house with the old
gentleman, so that no-separate property came to the widow.
Besides, old Mr. Carter had become so embarrassed in his
affairs, that he was obliged to sell his plantation, and most
of his slaves and move to Texas. He asked Harriet to go with
him, but she could not bear to go so much further from her
native place, and besides she longed to see the old city once
more.
Mr. Carter gave her as much money as he
could spare, which was no great sum, after all. With her only
child, little Florence, she returned to her native city, and
taking a moderate priced lodging, she tried to procure
needle-work for a living. It was some time before she
succeeded, and her little fund had become exhausted. When she
did procure it, the prices paid were so small, that it was
only by working beyond her strength, that she could earn
enough to purchase the barest necessaries of life. And so she
was often ill, and she and Florence suffered much from want,
and the latter was finally sent forth to sell flowers. Having
some pride, she would not seek her family in her present
condition, nor, in fact, did she dare do so, for fear of an
insulting rejection.
And thus things went on till Providence
sent her brother Robert to her poor chamber, and she found him
her affectionate brother still.
Under good nursing and kind attendance,
Mrs. Carter, in no long time, recovered her health. She lived
happily in her brother's house many years; long enough to see
her daughter, Florence, now a beautiful and accomplished young
lady, married to the man of her choice, and the choice of her
mother, and all her uncle's family.
And all this favorable turn of events
was brought about, under Providence, through the agency of a
little flower girl.
