Helen Ford. Alger Horatio Jr.
upon the life of a poor man—to gratify his taste, mortified by the gloomy surroundings of his daily life, to nourish the little flower of sentiment struggling out of the rubbish that has well-nigh choked out his æsthetic nature, and help him to feel that life has a beautiful side, from which he is not utterly shut out.
So Helen and the poor seamstress, confined through the week in poor and unattractive chambers, felt a quiet satisfaction in the grand architectural proportions and solemn beauty of the great church in which they felt themselves welcome guests. They derived new strength for the plain and humble duties of every day in the thought that one day in seven they could escape into a loftier atmosphere, and feel God’s presence nearer.
Occasionally, as the service proceeded, Helen stole a glance at her father, who sat beside her. His face wore a look of calm enjoyment and intelligent appreciation.
As he sat with his clasped hands resting on his knees, and his eyes fixed upon the preacher, the vanished years returned, and beside him there sat once more the fair young bride, whose pure and saintly image lived a hallowed remembrance in the heart of father and daughter alike.
When the service closed, he did not change his position, till Helen, touching him gently, said, “It is time to go, papa.”
“We will come again next Sunday, Helen,” he said.
“Yes, papa.”
They walked back slowly and thoughtfully to their humble homes, speaking little, but each more happy and peaceful for the hour passed in the great church whose lofty spire seemed ever pointing upwards to that God in whose service it was reared.
CHAPTER IX.
THE LAWYER’S PROGRESS
The day after his meeting with Helen and her father, the worthy attorney, Mr. Sharp, took his way leisurely to the boarding-house of Mrs. Morton. Although the object of his visit was clearly defined to his own mind, he scarcely knew in what manner he might best attain it. But Mr. Sharp was not a man to be abashed or daunted by small difficulties. Trusting, therefore, to what chance and the inspiration of the moment might suggest, he mounted the steps and rang the bell.
“Mrs. Morton, I presume,” he remarked, with great affability, as that lady opened the door in person.
“You are quite right, sir.”
“I believe,” he remarked with suavity, “that I am correct in the supposition that you take boarders.”
“I wonder what he’s aiming at,” thought Mother Morton, glancing with something of suspicion at the white hat set jauntily on one side of his head. “I hope he won’t apply for board. I am always suspicious of those who are so smooth-tongued.”
“Yes, sir,” she said aloud, “I do take boarders, but I am full now.”
“Indeed!” said Mr. Sharp, with a benignant smile, “I am delighted to hear of your prosperity. I was not, however, thinking of making an application for board in my own behalf, though I should undoubtedly esteem it a high privilege to be an inmate of a boarding-house which I am confident is so admirably conducted. Will you have the goodness to tell me whether you have a boarder or lodger named Dupont?”
It is scarcely necessary to explain that this inquiry was employed by Mr. Sharp as a plausible method of accounting for his calling, and to pave the way for something else. He had no particular choice in the name, but thought Dupont would be as uncommon as any.
“Yes,” was the unexpected reply of Mrs. Morton, “we have a lodger of that name. I believe he is in. Will you step in and see him, sir?”
Unprepared for this answer, Mr. Sharp was for the moment undecided how to act. Being sufficiently quick-witted, however, he soon devised a way to extricate himself from his embarrassment.
“Poor man!” said he with a gentle sigh; “he’s much to be pitied.”
“Pitied!” echoed the landlady, opening wide her eyes in astonishment. “Why?”
“To a sensitive mind,” continued Mr. Sharp, in a tone of mild pathos, “bodily deformity must be a great drawback to one’s comfort and happiness.”
“Deformity!” repeated the landlady in increased surprise.
“Yes, Mr. Dupont is a humpback, is he not?”
“A humpback!” returned Mrs. Morton, in a tone of some asperity. “You are quite mistaken, sir; I have no humpback among my boarders.”
“Then it cannot be the man I mean,” said the lawyer, rejoiced to have got out of the scrape so cleverly. “I beg ten thousand pardons for having put you to so much trouble.”
“No trouble, sir,” was the civil reply.
Mrs. Morton held the door, wondering why the visitor still remained, now that his errand was accomplished. The lawyer’s purpose, however, still remained to be effected. He was even now cudgelling his brains to devise a method of reaching it.
“A moment more,” he said, with suavity. “I think, as I passed last evening, that I saw a little girl enter with an elderly gentleman.”
“Helen Ford?”
“Oh, yes. She boards with you, does she not?”
“Helen and her father have a room up stairs. They board themselves. I only lodge them.”
“Pardon my curiosity, but I have an object in view. What is her father’s occupation?”
“He is busy about some invention, and has been ever since he came here. A flying machine, I believe.”
“Ah, yes,” said the lawyer, to whom this was all new. “It is as I supposed. Can I see them? I picked up a small purse,” he added, by way of explanation, “just after they passed me in the street, and I thought it not unlikely that the young lady might have dropped it.”
“Certainly,” said the landlady, somewhat more favorably disposed to Mr. Sharp, in consequence of this evidence of his integrity. “Their room is on the fourth floor, at the head of the stairs. Perhaps I had better go up and show you.”
“Oh, by no means, madam, by no means,” said the lawyer, politely. “I know the value of your time, and would on no account subject you to so much unnecessary trouble. I shall easily find it from your directions.”
Helen was looking out of the window, and her father was busied as usual, when a low tap was heard at the door.
Supposing it was Martha, who, in fact, with the exception of the landlady, was her only visitor, she cried, “Come in,” and then creeping softly to the door, jumped out playfully upon the one who entered. Her dismay may readily be conceived when, instead of the quiet seamstress, she found that she had narrowly escaped jumping into the arms of a tall man with a white hat.
“I am very sorry,—I did not know,—I thought it was Martha,” she faltered, in great confusion, her cheeks dyed with blushes.
“Don’t apologize, I beg of you,” said the stranger, courteously. “It is I, on the contrary, who should apologize for intruding upon you, and,” he added, glancing to the corner of the room, “upon your respected parent. I am not mistaken,” he added, inquiringly, “in supposing him to be your father?”
“No, sir,” said Helen, who, without understanding why, felt a little ill at ease from the elaborate politeness of her visitor.
“But I have not yet disclosed the motive of my visit. I chanced to be walking behind you and your father yesterday in the afternoon. You walked out at that time?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I thought I could not be mistaken. There are some countenances, my dear young lady, that we are not likely to forget.”
Helen, unused as she was to flattery, did not understand that this was meant for a compliment. Therefore it quite failed of its effect. Perhaps this was quite as well, since, if understood, it would have confused rather than pleased her. She was too deficient in vanity to have felt flattered by a compliment from a stranger. Yet no one was more desirous of winning the