Demorest's Family Magazine. January 1883. Vol. 19, No. 3

NO. C C X V I. JANUARY, 1883. [VOL. X IX .,N O . 3. T h a t Jo l l y O ld Co u p l e . A JOLLY old couple indeed, sir ! you may call them and still have enough to pay the entrance fees. And we only that !They are both gone, died within a few days need to work for ourselves, and we can have time to take of each other, and the old people here will never for walks together again.” get them and their pleasant cheerful little ways. Janet’s plan seemed a good one, and was carried out. Two I expressed my regret to the matron of the Home that I old friends were taken into their confidence, and proved of should never again see Mr. and Mrs. Barnes, and she told the greatest assistance to them at the final breaking up of me that there was quite a little history attached to their their little home. Mrs. Barnes sold the family silver to a names, if I cared to listen. Of course I cared, as John and silversmith, so as to be sure that it would be melted down Janet Barnes were the great attraction that took me to the at once “ My family would be very glad to have it as a Home whenever I could spare time to visit,— so she began gift,” she said, “ for it is very old, but why have they not at the beginning, that is to say, many years back, when the come forward and offered to buy it at a good price ! ” “ But thought of going into a Home for the Aged first occurred to the funniest of all was about the portraits, sir,” said the them. When long past middle age they had lost almost the matron. “ Janet wanted to see her father’s picture and that whole of the income which they had hoped would support of old Mr. Barnes as long as she lived, but she was very much them as long as they lived ; they had no children. John afraid of their getting into some old second-hand furniture was almost the last of his family, but Janet had brothers and store after her death—so after getting permission to have sisters, nephews and nieces innumerable, and plenty of peo them in her room and dispose of them as she pleased after ple who had been entertained at their house in their days of ward, she called me to her and told me she wanted me after prosperity, but nobody had anything to offer but advice, the death of herself and husband to paint over the faces of and that of a kind that was impossible to follow. So they the portraits with white paint, and then give or sell them as took in sewing, the old man learning to manage a sewing canvas for an artist. I tell you, Sir, I hated awfully to do machine, feeble as he was from rheumatism, and the poor it, for they were such fine looking old gentlemen both of wife sewing early and late at every moment she could spare them .” from her housework. They could not have supported them “ And did you paint over the faces ? ” selves but for the interest of the little money they still had “ Oh yes, for I had promised. And now I must tell you in the bank, and often they became discouraged when old about that : Mr. Barnes was taken ill first, with pneumonia, age and feeble health made them feel the need of little luxu and his wife hardly left him for a minute, and she seemed ries to which they had been accustomed. so well and strong in helping him that nobody thought she One day Mr. Barnes was quite startled by his wife’s ask would die. She watched him so closely too— she seemed to ing him how he would like to go into a Home for the Aged. see what no one else saw, and when he said ' good-night ’ to “ Are you thinking of putting me into one, Janet ? ” her, she said, ' It is good-night and good-bye too. My dar “ Not unless I go with you, dear. But I am thinking of ling has gone. Mrs. Cole, remember your promise about the these few thousand dollars of ours in the savings bank, and portraits.' We thought her mind was wandering, but not what a pity it is we could not use them now instead of work so. Mr. Barnes was dead, and his poor wife’s heart was ing so hard.” broken ; she only lived a day and a half after that, and all “ And when it is all gone, go into a Home?” she said was ' I am going to ray darling. Remember about “ Exactly. Only we must leave enough out to pay our the portraits.’ So I had ready a pot of paint, and I spoiled entrance fees. It would last us a few years, and I am not the faces of the two old gentlemen, so as to keep my prom overanxious to leave it to the children of my brothers and ise and to satisfy that dear old woman, so fond and so sisters, as they are not willing to help me now.” proud.” “ It would come hard on you, Janet, who have always been “ Did any of the family ever come after the portraits ? ” used to a house of your own.” “ Why, sir, if the fine people who came here after the “ So many things have come hard of late that I have death of this couple had helped them a little according to thought of this as an improvement. W e could live six or their means, they need never have come here. Ever so many seven years on this money and the sale of our little furniture, came to inquire for them, but after giving them a piece of Vol . XIX.—J a n u a r y , 1883—11 135 DEMOREST’S MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 136 my mind I referred them to Mr. Campbell and Mrs. Morris, those people you may have met here on visiting days, one In Charge of the Captain. John’s friend, one Janet’s. Two different gentlemen came for the portrait of Mr. Barnes’s father, and each of them said BY CHARLES BARNARD. there should have been some old family silver coming to them from their old uncle. And an old gentleman and his HE came in a cab, quite alone, and crossing the little wife called to see about Mrs. Barnes’s effects, as they called footbridge, came out on the bare, open deck of the it, and said there should have been an old family portrait, and a great deal of silver, and considerable money. I told floating barge that makes the landing place for ar them that the old people who came here, generally came be riving and departing passengers by steamer at Liverpool. cause there was nothing to keep them on outside, but I sent They call if the Princess Pier, but it is only a float such as them to Mrs. Morris. I believe the old man was brother to might disgrace a steamboat landing on the Ohio. On the Janet, for he was the express image of her. But the most barge were two groups of people waiting for the wretched interesting of all was that lovely young girl who used to come little paddle-boats to take them to their steamers lying in here to sing to our old people. Did you never notice her, sir ? mid-stream. She seemed to guess quickly to which party She came with her bonne ; her name was Agnes Tucker, and she must belong, for there were many, pf her countrymen her grandmother was own sister to Janet, but she did not and women there. know it until afterward.” Near by stood a red-bearded man in a faded uniform and “ How did she find out ? ” holding in his hand a letter he had just received. It did not " She came to see me after the funeral was over, and asked seem to please him. In it he had been requested to take me to let her have something that had belonged to her Aunt charge of a young lady passenger, an orphan on her way to Janet, offering to pay freely. I suppose I spoke pretty sharply her home in the United States, and to deliver her safely to to her, for she cried bitterly and begged me not to be hard her guardian in New York at the end of the voyage. At the upon her dear mamma. Her grandmother, sister to Mrs. moment a young person spoke to him. Barnes, had listened to some wicked gossip about her sister, " Is this Captain MacDonald, of the Par enthia?” and hardened her heart against her before the marriage of A musical voice, rather self-asserting and American at Agnes’s mother. Mrs. Tucker had always been fond of her that. Aunt Janet, but had lost track of her, and when her mother Yes, miss. Your servant.” on her death bed had begged her to hunt up her aunt and “ I am Miss Ward, sir, Miss Annie Ward. I believe yon ask her forgiveness, she had hoped to do so, but had become are to take care of me.” a hopeless invalid. Agnes did not know the names of all the He turned to have a better look at her, and his disgust at old people, and it was not until Mrs.

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