Rae Arbuthnot [pp. 444-448]

~~~~I ~RAE ARBUTHNOT.
posure overcame me, and I was sick for many
weeks. I never knew until years afterward
how my sister kept the wolf fi-omi our door
during that time, nor how, when I grew stronger,
I found myself in a pleasant school for girIs.
A friend was helping me, she said, and that
was all I knew until after I graduated, and then
I learned that she had sold her womanhood to
keep mine pure and happy. She never would
take me to the home where she reigned as mistress, and I never sawv the man whose gold had
smoothed my pathway, but I vowed that while
she lived homeless, subject to the caprice of
her master, I would never wear the safe, swveet
name of wife, and so accept a shelter and home
for myself, whose doors might be shut against
her. I knewv that as your wxife I would live in a
sphere of society whose leaders hold themselves aloof from the working classes, and in
which employers drive their task-women to
distraction by stinting them in the merest necessities of life. And I could not leave my
sister, xwho had suffered so much firom them for
my sake, to her bitter fate, while I nestled in
-our love, and looked out upon her wretchedness fiom the safe, pure shelter of tour home.
Now you know what keeps us apart, and why I
would not tell you my reason for refusing you.
You may go now; I wvant to see Margie
alone."
He stooped and kissed her forehead, then
turned to her sister, " I\May God bless and help
you, Margie Arbuthnot!" he said and was gone.
What passed between the sisters no one ever
knevw, but it must have been pitiful, for when,
hours afterward, Cyde sought and found Rae
where he had left hler, she was weeping bitterly
still, and would not be comforted.
| Rae, I want to tell you that it makes no
difference in my love for you. I love you just
the same, and I ask you once more to be my
wi fe."
"No, Cyde, not while Margie is homeless,"
she answered sadly but firmly.
"But we will give her a home, Rae, and save
her from the life she is living."
"She would never accept it. She says that
she is not worthly to live under the same roof
w ith me, and yet it is all for my sake that she
is xxlhat she is," wailed Rae piteously.
In vain he pleaded. She would not yield,
and he xvas forced to wait for whatever time
could bring him.
Months afterward Margie Arbuthnot died in
one of the city hospitals, with Rae beside her
to soothe and minister to her.
"Little Rae," she said at the last, "little Rea,
my pretty lily, I've kept you pure and clean!
I've lived a hard, bad life, and I suppose that
men call me degraded and ruined, but 0, my
pretty, I can't be sorry that I bought you ease
and safety even at such a cost! And, Rae,
when I'm gone, remember that if the women
who talkl so well and loudly of woman's rights,
and of elevating the sex, and widening the
sphere of working women, would spend less
money for silks, and jewels, and laces, there
wvould be fewer sewing women defrauded, and
fewer girls driven into the jaws of sin to escape
starvation. There's many a girl's soul lost for
less than the cost of one of their ball dresses
Remember, little Rae, to use your influence in
behalf of the fallen, for God knows howv sorely
some of them have been tempted. And, Rae
dear, it can not sully your whiteness to reach
out a hand to lift some one up. Christ lost
none of his purity in saviing Mary Magdalene.
I'm glad that's in the Book! I'm glad! let
me rest now."
And her rest came soon, for while Rae watched
her a gray shadow crept over her lips and up to
her brow, and her eyes grew glassy. The
weeping girl stooped and kissed her face with
tender, grieving lips, and as she raised her
head a smile brokle about the dying wvoman's
pale mouth, and she murmured under her
breath, "I did it for little Rae, for little Rae!
God save my pretty, and keep her pure and
white!" and again, after a little pause, she
whispered, "I did it all for little Rae. I'mi
not as bad as I seem! Lord pity me-Mary
Magdalene"-her voice died away, and Margie
Arbuthnot lay dead, and her one mourner was
she who in all the unhappy past had been to
her erring heart only "little Rae," the clean,
white lily for whom she had sold her womanhood, and could not regret the bitter cost.
Who can say if the dear Christ, who forgave a
Mary Magdalene, did not forgive and receive
the tempted and sinful soul of this woman,
whom a pitiless world had hunted to death?
Let him that is without sin say nay.
We broughlt Rae back to La Retraite as soon
as possible and tried to make her forget the
pitiful past, but it wvas long, even after she became Mrs. Rae Lennox, before she lost the
sorrowful, haunted look from her eyes, and found
the smiles that had so long been strangers to
her lips.
Cyde is very tender of her, and joins in all
of her plans to help the wretched sewing girls
of the city xvhere they live. Once a year, with
Dora and Amy and their husbands-for, after
all, Amy surprised me by a pretty little romance
of her own, and is now a quaint little wifethey visit us at La Retraite and plan new work
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