Maria, the doctor's maid, opened the door, and as she admitted her
master and his charge, her countenance was suggestive of round O's.
Her face was round, and her eyes opened into two round spots, while her
mouth became a perfectly circular orifice, as the doctor himself took
off the boy's cap, and marched him into the drawing-room, where Helen
Grayson was seated.
On his way to the house, and with his young heart swelling at having to
part from the only being who had been at all kind to him--for the
recollection of the rough tramp had become extremely faint--the boy had
had hard work to keep back his tears, but no sooner had he passed the
doctor's door than the novelty of all he saw changed the current of his
thoughts, and he was full of eagerness and excitement.
The first inkling of this was shown as his eyes lit upon Maria's round
face, and it tickled him so that he began to smile.
"Such impidence!" exclaimed Maria. "And a workus boy. My! what's
master going to do with him?"
She hurried to the housekeeper's room, where Mrs Millett, who had kept
the doctor's house, and attended to the cooking as well, ever since Mrs
Grayson's death, was now seated making herself a new cap.
"A workhouse boy, Maria?" she said, letting her work fall upon her
knees, and looking over the top of her spectacles.
"Yes; and master's took him into the drawing-room."
"Oh! very well," said Mrs Millett tartly. "Master's master, and he has
a right to do what he likes; but if there's anything I can't abear in a
house it's a boy in buttons. They're limbs, that's what they are;
regular young imps."
"Going to keep a page!" said Maria, whose eyes looked a little less
round.
"Why, of course, girl; and it's all stuff."
"Well, I don't know," said Maria thoughtfully. "There's the
coal-scuttles to fill, and the door-bell to answer, a deal more than I
like."
"Yes," said Mrs Millett, snipping off a piece of ribbon viciously; "I
know. That boy to find every time you want 'em done, and a deal less
trouble to do 'em yourself. I can't abear boys."
While this conversation was going on in the housekeeper's room,
something of a very different kind was in progress in the drawing-room,
where the daughter looked up from the letter she was writing, and gazed
wonderingly at the boy. For her father pushed the little fellow in
before him, and said: "There!" in a satisfied tone, and looked from one
to the other.
"Why, papa!" said Helen, after looking pleasantly at the boy.
"Yes, my dear, that's him. There he is. From this hour my experiment
begins."
"With this boy?" said Helen.
"Yes, my dear, shake hands with him, and make him at home."
The doctor's sweet lady-like daughter held out her hand to the boy, who
was staring about him at everything with wondering delight, till he
caught sight of an admirably drawn water-colour portrait of the doctor,
the work of Helen herself, duly framed and hung upon the wall.
The boy burst into a hearty laugh, and turned to Helen, running to her
now, and putting his hand in hers. "Look there," he cried, pointing
with his left hand; "that's the old chap's picture. Ain't it like him!"
The doctor frowned, and Helen looked troubled, even though it was a
compliment to her skill; and for a few moments there was a painful
silence in the room.
This was however broken by the boy, who lifted Helen's hand up and down,
and said in a parrot-like way--
"How do you do?"
Helen's face rippled over with smiles, and the boy's brightened, and he
too smiled in a way that made him look frank, handsome, and singularly
attractive.
"Oh, I say, you are pretty," he said. "Ten times as pretty as Miss
Hippetts on Sundays."
"Hah! yes. Never mind about Miss Hippetts. And look here, my man, Mr
Hippetts said that you were anything but a good boy, and your
schoolmaster said the same."
"Yes; everybody knows that I am a reg'lar bad boy. The worst boy in the
whole school."
Helen Grayson's face contracted.
"Oh, you are, are you!" said the doctor drily.
"Yes, Mr Sibery told everybody so."
"Well, then, now, sir, you will have to be a very good boy."
"All right, sir."
"And behave yourself very nicely."
"But, I say: am I going to stop here, sir?"
"Yes; always."
"What, in this room?"
"Yes."
"And ain't I to go back to the House to have my crumbs!"
"To have your what?"
"Breakfasses and dinners, sir?"
"No, you will have your meals here."
"But I shall have to go back to sleep along with the other boys?"
"No, you will sleep here; you will live here altogether now."
"What! along of you and her?" cried the boy excitedly.
"Yes, always, unless you go to a good school."
"But live here along o' you, in this beautiful house with this nice
lady, and that gal with a round face."
"Yes, of course."
"Ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-ri-i-kee!" cried the boy in a shrill, piercing
voice; and, to the astonishment of the doctor and his daughter, he made
a bound, and then, with wonderful skill and rapidity, began turning the
wheel, as it is called, going over and over on hands and feet,
completely round the room.
"Here, stop, sir, stop!" cried the doctor, half-angry and half-amused.
"I can do it t'other way too," cried the boy; and, as he had turned
before commencing upon his left hand, he began with his right, and
completed the circuit of the room in the opposite direction.
"There!" he cried, as he stopped before the doctor and his daughter,
flushed and proud. "There isn't a chap in the House can do it as quick
as I can. Mr Sibery caught me one day, and didn't I get the cane!"
There was such an air of innocent pride displayed by the boy, that after
for the moment feeling annoyed, Helen Grayson sat back in her chair and
laughed as much at the boy as at her father's puzzled look, of surprise.
"That's nothing!" cried the boy, as he saw Helen's smiles. "Look here."
He ducked down and placed his head on the hearthrug, his hands on either
side in front, and threw his heels in the air, to the great endangerment
of the chimney ornaments.
"Get down, sir! get down!" cried the doctor. "I mean, get up."
"It don't hurt," cried the boy, "stand on my head longer than you will
for a penny."
"Will you get up, sir!"
The boy let his feet go down into their normal position upon the carpet,
and rose up with his handsome young face flushed, and a look of proud
delight in his eyes.
"I can walk on my hands ever so far," he shouted boisterously.
"No, no; stop!"
"You look, miss, and see me run like a tomcat."
Before he could be stopped, he was down on all-fours running, with
wonderful agility, in and out among the chairs, and over the hearthrug.
"That's what I do to make the boys laugh, when we go to bed. I can go
all along the dormitory, and jump from one bed to the other. Where's
the dormitory? I'll show you."
"No, no; stop!" cried the doctor, and he caught hold of the boy by the
collar. "Confound you, sir: are you full of quicksilver!"
"No. It's skilly," said the boy, "and I ain't full now I'm ever so
hungry."
The doctor held him tightly, for he was just off again.
Helen Grayson tried to look serious, but was compelled to hold her
handkerchief before her mouth, and hide her face; but her eyes twinkled
with mirth, as her father turned towards her, and sat rubbing his stiff
grey hair.
The doctor's plan of bringing up a boy chosen from the workhouse had
certainly failed, she thought, so far as this lad was concerned; and as
the little prisoner stood tightly held, but making all the use he could
of his eyes, he said, pointing to a glass shade over a group of wax
fruit--
"Is them good to eat!"
"No," said Helen, smiling.
"I say, do you have skilly for breakfast!"
"I do not know what skilly is," replied Helen.
"Then, I'll tell you. It's horrid. They beats up pailfuls of oatmeal
in a copper, and ladles it out. But it's better than nothing."
"Ahem!" coughed the doctor, who was thinking deeply.