Maiden May, on finding herself alone with Miss Mary, at once went up,
with a confidence she might not have felt with a person not deprived of
sight as the kind lady was, and took her hand.
"Mother told me to ask whether you would like me to lead you about the
garden. May I do so?"
"I should like you to lead me about very much, though I think I know my
way pretty well. But you must stop whenever you come to a flower you
admire, and I will tell you its name, and you must describe to me
anything else you see--birds or butterflies or other insects. As my
eyes are blind, you must use yours instead of them for my benefit."
"Oh, yes, Miss Mary; I will try and do what you say," exclaimed May,
delighted to find that she could be of use to the blind lady. A new
existence seemed suddenly opened out to her. The gentle and refined
tone of voice of Miss Mary sounded pleasing to her ear, although she did
not understand all that she said, her language was so different to that
she had been accustomed to hear used in the fisherman's cottage.
Then she was delighted with the new and beautiful flowers, and her
wonder was excited when she found that they all had names, and that Miss
Mary, though blind, could tell their colours and describe them so
perfectly. Miss Mary also told her the names of the birds whose notes
they heard as they walked about the grounds, and May in return described
with a minuteness which surprised her blind friend a number of objects
both animate and inanimate which she thought would interest her, while
she asked a variety of questions which, though exhibiting her ignorance,
showed a large amount of intelligence and desire to obtain information.
The child was evidently natural and thoroughly unaffected, without
either timidity or rustic bashfulness. She had, indeed, been treated
with uniform kindness, and with even a certain amount of respect, which
the fisherman and his family could not help feeling for her. Though the
dame had not failed in endeavouring to correct any faults she might have
exhibited, yet she had done so with that gentleness and firmness which
made the little girl sensible that her kind protectress did so for her
benefit alone. The dame found the task a very easy one, for Maiden May
rarely required a rebuke.
Still, though her voice was gentle, the child had caught the idiom and
pronunciation of the fisherman's family; but even in that respect there
was a natural refinement in the tone of her voice; and as Adam was a
God-fearing man, and had brought up his sons to fear God also, no coarse
language or objectionable expressions were ever heard in his cottage.
Indeed, more true refinement is oftener found among the lower classes
where religious principles exist than is generally supposed.
Miss Mary, after walking till she was tired, invited her young guest
into the house. Luncheon was placed on the table; Susan attended her
mistress and placed delicacies before May such as she had never before
tasted. In spite, however, of Susan's pressing invitations to take
more, she ate but sparingly, to the surprise of the kind woman, who
thought that the little fisher-girl would have done more justice to the
good things offered her.
"She has quite a young lady's appetite," she observed afterwards to Miss
Mary.
"That is not surprising, for a young lady she is, depend on that. It
will be a grievous pity if her relatives are not to be found," was the
answer.
After luncheon, Miss Mary got out a book and placed it before May, and
begged her to read from it. By the way May endeavoured to spell out the
words Miss Mary discovered that she had made but very little progress in
her education.
"Please, I think I could say my lessons better in the Bible if I could
find the verses father teaches me," said May, with perfect honesty.
Miss Mary rang to obtain Susan's assistance, and May asked her to find
the Sermon on the Mount. May read out nearly the whole of the first
chapter, with a peculiar tone and pronunciation, which she had learned
from honest Adam, following the words with her finger.
"I rather think, my little maid, that you know the verses by heart,"
observed Miss Mary.
"Oh, yes," answered May, naively, "I could not read them without; but I
will try and learn more before I next come."
Miss Mary was, however, inclined to advise her not to make the attempt,
as she would learn to pronounce the words with the accent which sounded
so harsh to her ears.
"But, however pronounced, they are God's words," she thought to herself.
"I should not prevent her learning even a verse from His book. She
will soon gain the right pronunciation from educated people."
The time passed as pleasantly with Miss Mary as with May herself.
At length Susan appeared to say that a fisher-lad, one of Dame
Halliburt's sons, had come to fetch the little girl.
"Who is it?" asked Miss Mary.
"Oh, it is sure to be brother Jacob, the rest have gone out with
father," answered May.
Jacob was desired to walk in. He stood in the hall, hat in hand,
watching the door of the drawing-room, through which Susan had intimated
May would appear. As soon as she saw him she ran forward and took both
of his hands, pleasure beaming on her countenance. He stooped down and
kissed her.
"Are you ready to come with me, Maidy May?" he asked; "you don't want to
stop away from us with the ladies here, do you?"
"Oh, no, no, Jacob!" answered May, holding him tightly by the hand; "I
don't want to leave father or mother or you; I will go back with you as
soon as you like."
Miss Mary overheard the latter part of the conversation as she followed
May out of the drawing-room.
"I hear, my good lad, that you have been very kind to the little girl;
and pray understand that we do not wish to rob you of her; and if we ask
her to come up here, it will only be to help you in teaching her to
read, as I understand you have been accustomed to do."
"Please, ma'am, I am a very poor scholar," answered Jacob; "but I do my
best, and I shall be main glad if you will help me."
Hand-in-hand May and Jacob set off to return home.
That evening Jacob might have been seen with the Bible before him, and
May seated by his side, while he tried to help her to read. As the lamp
fell on their countenances, the contrast between the fair,
delicate-looking child and the big, strongly-built fisher-boy, with his
well-bronzed, broad and honest face, would not have failed to be
remarked by a stranger entering the room.
Jacob spelt out the words one by one, pronouncing them with his broad
accent as he gained their meaning, while May followed him, imitating
exactly the intonation of his voice. Sometimes she not only caught him
up, but got ahead, reading on several words by herself, greatly to her
delight.
"Ah, May! I see how it is," said Jacob, with a sigh. "You will be
quicker with your books than I ever shall be, and if the kind ladies at
Downside wish to teach you, it's not for me to say them nay; but I would
that I had more learning for your sake, and I shall be jealous of them,
that I shall, when I find that you can read off out of any book you have
got as smoothly as you do the verses you have learned by rote. Oh, you
will be laughing at me then."
"No, no, Jacob! I will never laugh at you. You taught me all I know
about reading, and I shall never forget that, even if I learn to read
ever so well."
Next morning, when Adam came home from fishing, the dame told him the
interest Miss Mary Pemberton seemed to take in Maiden May, and of her
expectation that the Miss Pembertons would wish to have the little girl
up to instruct her better than they could at home. Adam agreed that it
would not be right to prevent their charge enjoying the benefit which
such instruction would undoubtedly be to her.
"But they must not rob us of her altogether, dame. I could not bear to
part with the little maiden, and what is more I won't, unless her own
kindred come to claim her, and then it would go sore against the grain
to give her up. But right is right, and we could not stand out against
that."
"If the Miss Pembertons wish to take the little girl into their house
and make a little lady of her it would not be right, I fear, Adam, to
say `No' to them."
"She is a little lady already," answered Adam, sturdily. "They could
not make her more so than she is already."
"But I am afraid the way we live, and speak too, Adam, is not like that
of gentlefolks; and though our Maiden May is a little lady, and better
than many little ladies I have known in all her ways, she will become in
time too much like one of us to please those to whom she belongs, I am
afraid," observed the dame, who had from her experience as a domestic
servant in Mr Castleton's family, a clearer perception of the
difference between the habits of her own class and those of the upper
orders of society than her husband. Still Adam was not to be convinced.
"We are bringing her up as a Christian child should be brought up, to be
good and obedient," he observed, in a determined tone, "and that's more
than many among the gentry are. You know, Betsy, you wouldn't like her
to be like that Miss Castleton you told me off."
"No more I should," answered the dame; "But though the Pembertons are of
her kindred, they are truly Christian ladies, and Maiden May could only
learn good from them."
As is often the case in a matrimonial discussion, the wife had the best
of the argument, but they were still uncertain whether the Miss
Pembertons would even make the offer which the dame had suggested as
possible. She, at all events, had promised to take Maiden May up to
them, and Adam could not prohibit her doing so.