CHAPTER XVII

SARAH'S OPPORTUNITY

A few days later they made the move to the little house at Fulham,

which, in poor lavish Mrs. Stubbs's eyes, was but a degree better than a

removal to the workhouse.

But Sarah--who somehow seemed to have naturally the management of

everything--worked like a slave to get everything into good order before

her aunt should set foot in the place at all. She turned the house in

Jesamond Road out that she might take the prettiest and most suitable

things for the little Queen Anne box to which they were going, and, with

the help of Johnnie and the new servant, succeeded in having everything

in perfect order by the time of Mrs. Stubbs's arrival.

But it was very, very small. Mrs. Stubbs looked hopelessly at the

narrow passage and the narrower doorways when she entered, sobbed as she

recognised one article of furniture after another, or missed such as

Sarah had not thought it wise or in good taste to bring.

"Oh, dear, dear! I ought to think it all very pretty and nice," she

wailed; "I left it all to you, Sarah, and I know you've done your

best--I know it; but I _did_ think I should have been able to keep my

own inlaid market writing-table that Stubbs gave me on my last

wedding-day--I did."

"Dear Auntie, you shall have it," Sarah explained, soothingly. "I

couldn't get you to choose just what you would have, and I had to be

guided by size a good deal. But we can fetch the table easily enough;

it will stand here in the window beautifully, and just finish off the

room nicely."

"Flossie says she'll not be able to come and see us very often." Mrs.

Stubbs wandered off again. "She says it knocks the carriage about so,

coming down these new neighbourhoods. Ah, _I_ never used to think of my

carriages before my relations, never!"

"Flossie will have more sense by-and-by," said Sarah, who had but small

patience with Mrs. Jones's airs and graces.

Poor Sarah was so tired of Flossie and her airs! To her mind, she was

hardly worth a moment's consideration or regret; to her she was just an

ungenerous, self-sufficient, very vulgar and heartless young person, who

would have been more in her place had she been scrubbing floors or

washing dishes than she was, or ever would be, riding in her own

carriage behind a pair of high-stepping horses that had cost four

hundred guineas.

"Don't think about Flossie at all, dear," she said to her aunt. "Some

day she'll be sorry for all that has happened lately; perhaps some day

she may have trouble herself, and then she will understand how unkind

she has been to you. But May is always sweet and good, though she is

tied up by that horrid old man, and can't help you as she would like;

and the little ones are different--they would never hurt your feelings

willingly."

Poor Mrs. Stubbs shook her head sadly. She had said nothing to Sarah,

for a wonder--for as a rule she carried all her troubles to her--but

only that morning Tom had flung off to "his beastly office" in a rage,

because she had not been able to give him a sovereign and had suggested

that the pound a week he was receiving ought to be more than enough for

his personal expenses; and Minnie had pouted and cried because she could

not have a pair of new gloves; and the little ones had looked at her in

utter dismay because there was not a fresh pot of jam for their

breakfast. Perhaps Mrs. Stubbs felt that Sarah was young, and must not

be disheartened when she was doing her best; I know not. Any way, she

kept these things to herself, and after shaking her head as a sort of

tribute to her troubles, promised that she would try to make herself

happy in her new home.

And then Sarah felt herself at liberty to go and pay a visit to Signor

Capri, her violin master, one she had been wishing to pay ever since her

uncle's death. She went at a time when she knew he would be alone, and

indeed she found him so.

"Ah, my little Sara!" he cried; "I was hoping to see you again soon.

And tell me, you have lost the good uncle, eh?"

"Yes, Signor," she answered, and briefly told him all the story of her

uncle's misfortune and death. "And now," she ended, "I want to make

money. They have done everything for me; now I want to do something for

them. Can you help me?"

[Illustration: "They have done everything for me; now I want to do

something for them. Can you help me?"]

"You are a brave child!" the violin-master cried; "and God has given you

the rarest of all good gifts--a grateful heart. I think I can help you;

I think so. Only this morning I had a letter from a friend who is

arranging a concert tour; he has first-rate _artistes_, and he wants a

lady violinist."

"Me!" cried Sarah excitedly.

"But," said the maestro, raising his hand, "he does not give much

money."

"But it would be a beginning," she broke in.

"He gives six pounds a week."

"I'll go!" Sarah cried.

"Then we will go and see him at once; I have an hour to spare," said the

Italian kindly.

Well, before that hour was ended, Sarah had engaged herself to go on a

twelve weeks' tour, at a salary of six pounds a week and her travelling

expenses; and before ten days more had gone over her head, she had set

off on her travels in search of fame and fortune.

Flossie's remarks were very pious. "I'm sure, Sarah," she said, setting

her rich folds of crape and silk straight, "I am heartily glad to find

that you have so much good feeling as to wish to relieve poor Ma of the

expense of keeping you. How much happier you will be to feel you are no

longer a burden on anybody! There's nothing like independence. I'm

sure every time I think of poor Ma, I say to myself, 'Thank Heaven,

_I'm_ no burden upon her!"

"That must be a great comfort to you, I'm sure, Flossie," said Sarah

gravely.

"Yes; I often tell Mr. Jones so. And what salary are you going to have,

Sarah?"

"Enough to help my aunt a little," replied Sarah coldly.

"Well, really, I can't see why you need be so close about it," Flossie

observed, "nor why you should want to help Ma. I'm sure she'll have

enough to live very comfortably, only, of course, she must be content to

live a little less extravagantly than she did before. I do believe,"

she added, with a superb air, "in people being content and happy with

what they have; it's so much more sensible than always pining after what

they haven't got. By the bye, Sarah, we are going to have a

dinner-party to-morrow night; I couldn't ask Ma because of her mourning,

but if you like to come in in the evening, and bring your violin, we

shall be very pleased, I'm sure."

"If you like to ask me as a professional, and pay my fee," began Sarah

mischievously.

"Pay your fee! Well, I never! To your own cousin, and when you owe us

so much!" Flossie exclaimed.

"I don't think I owe _you_ anything, Flossie, not even civility or

kindness," said Sarah coldly; but Mrs. Jones had flounced away in a

huff.

"Such impudence!" as she said to her husband afterwards.

Well, Sarah went off on her tour, and won a fair amount of

success--enough to make her manager anxious to secure her for the

following winter on the same terms. But Sarah had promised Signor Capri

to do nothing without his knowledge, and he wrote back, "Wait! Before

next winter you may be famous."

But the months passed over, and still fame had not come, except in a

moderate degree. The manager was very glad to take Sarah on tour again

at a salary advanced to seven pounds a week instead of six, and Sarah

was equally glad to go.

In the meantime, she had made a good deal of money by playing at private

houses and at concerts. She had taken a well-earned holiday to the

Channel Islands, and had given her aunt and the little ones a very good

time there, all out of her own pocket, and had added a very liberal sum

to the housekeeping purse of the little Queen Anne house at Fulham.

Twice she had dined with the Giaths in Palace Gardens, and had taken her

violin because May had not asked her to do so. And more than once she

had been asked to go in the evening to grace the rooms of Mrs. Jones--an

honour which she persistently declined.

So time went on, and Sarah worked late and early, hoping, longing,

praying to be one day a great woman.

Thus several years went by, and at last there came a glad and joyous day

when she received a command to play at a State concert--a day when she

woke to find herself looked upon as one of the first violinists of the

age. It was wonderful, then, how engagements crowded in upon her; how

she was sought out, flattered, and made much of; how even the

redoubtable Flossie was proud to go about saying that she was Miss

Gray's cousin.

Not that she ever owned it to Sarah; but Sarah heard from time to time

that Mrs. Jones had spread the fact of the relationship abroad. The

object of Flossie's life now seemed to be to get Sarah to play at her

house; for, as she explained to her mother and May--now a rich young

widow--"Of course it looks odd to other people that they never see Sarah

at my house, and I don't wish to do Sarah harm by saying that I don't

care to have her there. But sometimes when she's staying with you, May,

you might bring her."

"I don't think she would come," laughed May. "You see, you sat upon

Sarah so frightfully when she wasn't anybody in particular, that now,

when she is somebody of more consequence than all the lot of us put

together, she naturally doesn't feel inclined to have anything to do

with you. I know I shouldn't."

"And Lady Bright asked particularly if she was going to play on the

9th," said Flossie, with a rueful face, and not attempting to deny the

past in any way.

"And what did you say?"

"I said I hoped so."

"Oh, well, that will be all the same. Lady Bright will understand after

a time that 'Hope deferred maketh the heart sick.'" May laughed. "And

perhaps it will be as well to remember in future that ugly ducklings may

turn out swans some day, and that if they do, they are sometimes

painfully aware of the fact that some people would have kept them

ducklings for ever. You see, you and Tom, who is more horrid now even

than he was as a boy--yes, I see you agree with me--gave her the name of

Princess Sarah! She has grown up to the name, that is all."

THE END

Miss Mignon

It was a week before Christmas. There were no visitors at Ferrers

Court, although a couple of days later the great hall would be filled to

overflowing with a happy, light-hearted set of people, all bent, as they

always were at Ferrers Court, on enjoying themselves to the uttermost.

The weather was cold and cheerless, though not cold enough to stop the

hunting, and Captain Ferrers had been absent all day, and might now come

home at any moment. Mrs. Ferrers was, in fact, rather putting on the

time, hoping he might return before Browne brought in the tea. The

children meantime were clamouring loudly for a story.

"A story?" said Mrs. Ferrers doubtfully; she never thought herself very

good at story-telling, and often wondered that the children seemed to

like hearing her so much.

"Yes, a story," cried three or four fresh young voices in a breath.

"I'm afraid I've told you _all_ my stories," Mrs. Ferrers said

apologetically. "And I have told them all so many times."

"Tell us about Mignon," cried Maud, for Mignon, their half-sister, was

still their favourite heroine.

Mrs. Ferrers pondered for a moment. "I don't believe," she remarked,

"that I have ever told you about Mignon being lost."

"Mignon--lost!" cried Maud. "Oh! never."

"Lost!" echoed Pearl. "And where was she lost, Mother?"

"Tell us," cried Bertie.

"Yes; do tell us," echoed Cecil.

"Tell us," cried Madge and Baby in the same breath.

So Mrs. Ferrers gathered her thoughts together and began.

"It was when Pearl was about four months old"--at which Pearl drew

herself up and looked important, as if she, too, had had a share in the

adventure--"we went to London for the season. That was in April. We

had not the house we have now, for that was let for a term, so your

father took a house near the top of Queen's Gate."

"That's where the memorial is," said Pearl. "I know."

"Yes; we know," echoed Maud.

"Well, Humphie, who had attended Mignon ever since she was a year old,

had, of course, the entire care of Pearl, and I engaged a very nice

French maid--half-maid, half-nurse--for Mignon. She was under Humphie,

of course, but she had to take Mignon out--not very often, for she was

accustomed to going out a great deal with your father--and to dress her,

and so on.

"Well, one day your father and I were going to a large afternoon party

where we couldn't very well take Mignon. We stayed rather late, rushed

back and dressed and went to a dinner-party, not really having time to

see the children at all. We had a party or two later on, but to them we

never went, for just as we ladies were going through the hall on our way

up into the drawing-room, I caught sight of Browne at the door of the

inner hall. I turned aside at once.

"'Is anything the matter, Browne?' I asked. Indeed, I saw by his white

face that something dreadful had happened.

[Illustration: "'Is anything the matter, Brown?'" (Page 141)]

"'Oh, yes, ma'am, something dreadful!' he answered. 'I scarcely know

how to tell you. Miss Mignon is lost.'

"'Miss Mignon lost, Browne! What do you mean?' I said. 'How can she be

lost?'

"'I only know she is,' he said, in a shaking voice. 'That silly idiot

Hortense went out with her about three o'clock, with orders to go into

the Park. She--this is her story, I cannot vouch for the truth of it,

ma'am--she admits that she took her first to look at the shop-windows in

the High Street, and that then she thought she would like to go into the

Gardens, and that while there she fell asleep. The afternoon being so

warm, she sat on a bench asleep till half-past five, and when she woke

up with a start, feeling very shivery and cold--and serve her right,

too!--Miss Mignon was gone; there was not a trace of her to be seen.'

"'If the silly creature had come straight home,' Browne went on,

'something might have been done; but instead of doing that, she must go

into hysterics--with nobody to see her, even!--and then go crying about

from one gate to the other, wandering about, as if Miss Mignon would be

likely to be sitting on the edge of the pavement waiting for her. At

last--I suppose when she began to get hungry'--Browne went on savagely,

'she bethought herself of coming home, and there she landed herself at

nine o'clock, and has been steadily going out of one faint into another

ever since. I have sent James round to the police station,' he said,

'but I thought I had better come straight away and fetch you, ma'am.'

"Well," Mrs. Ferrers went on, "I said good-night to our hostess and sent

for your father, and we went back at once. We were five miles from

home, and it was half-past eleven when we got there. And there was no

trace of Mignon. James had taken a cab and gone round to all the police

stations within reach of the house, and Humphie was waiting for us,

shaking like a leaf and as white as death, and at the sight of us

Hortense went off into wild hysterics again and shrieked till--till--I

could have shaken her," Mrs. Ferrers ended severely.

"Well, your father and I just stood and looked at one another. 'Where

can she be?' I said. 'Can't you get any information out of Hortense?

Surely the woman must know where she was last with her.'

"But, as your father said, the Gardens were all deserted and closed

hours ago. She was not at all likely to be there. Almost without doubt

she had strayed out into the busy street, had then found herself in a

strange neighbourhood, and--and I simply shuddered to think what might

have happened to her after that.

"For the time we were helpless; we did not know, we could not think what

to do next. A policeman came up from the nearest station as we stood

considering what we should do. But he had no news; he shook his head at

my eager inquiry. 'No, madam,' he said, 'I'm sorry we have no news of

the little lady; but we telegraphed to all the stations near, but no

lost child has been brought in. She must have fallen in with some

private person.'

"As you may imagine," Mrs. Ferrers went on, "I felt dreadfully

blank--indeed, your father and I simply stood and looked at one another.

What should we, what could we do next? To go out and search about the

streets at nearly midnight would be like looking for a needle in a truss

of hay--we could not send a crier out with a bell--we were at our wits'

end. Indeed, it seemed as if we could do nothing but wait till morning,

when we might advertise.

"Then just as the policeman was turning away, another policeman came and

knocked at the door. A little girl had been taken into the police

station at Hammersmith, a pretty fair-haired child about six years old,

who did not know where she lived, and could not make the men there

understand who she was.

"'That's not Miss Mignon,' cried Humphie indignantly; 'Miss Mignon knows

perfectly well who she is and who she belongs to. That's never Miss

Mignon.'

"'Ah, well, Humphie,' said your father, 'Miss Mignon has never been lost

at dead of night before; it's enough to frighten any child, and though

she's as quick as a needle, she's only a baby after all.'

"The carriage was still at the door, and we went down as quickly as the

horses could go to Hammersmith, feeling sure that we should find Mignon

there, frightened and tired, but safe. And when we got there the child

wasn't Mignon at all, but a little, commonly-dressed thing who didn't

seem even to know what her name was. However, its mother came whilst we

were there, and scolded her properly for what she called 'running away.'

"I couldn't help it," Mrs. Ferrers went on. "I was in such trouble,

wondering what had got Mignon, and I just spoke to her straight. 'Oh,'

I said, 'you ought only to be thankful your little girl is safe and

sound, and not be scolding the poor little frightened thing like that.

How can your speak to her so?'

"'Well,' she said, 'if you had seven of them always up to some mischief

or other, and you'd been running about for hours till you were fit to

drop, and you hadn't a carriage to take her home in, I daresay you'd

feel a bit cross, too.'

"And I felt," Mrs. Ferrers went on reflectively, "that there was a great

deal in what she said. They didn't live more than a mile off, and it was

our way back, so we drove them home, and the little girl went to sleep

on her mother's knee; and I told her what trouble we were in about

Mignon. She was quite grateful for the lift, and I promised to let her

know if we found Mignon all right.

"Well, we reached home again, and there wasn't a sign of Mignon

anywhere. With every moment I got more and more uneasy, for Mignon was

turned six years old, and was well used to going about and seeing

strange people. I knew she wasn't a child to get nervous unduly, or be

frightened of any one who offered to take care of her, only I was so

afraid that the wrong sort of people might have got hold of her, and

might have decoyed her away for the sake of her clothes or a reward.

"Oh, dear, what a dreadful night it was! Your father went out and got a

cab and went round to all the police-stations, inquiring everywhere for

traces of her. And then he went and knocked up all the park-keepers,

but none of them had noticed her either.

"And Humphie and I sat up by the nursery fire; and about two in the

morning, Hortense crept down and went on her knees to me, praying and

imploring me to forgive her, and saying that if anything had happened to

little missie, she would make away with herself."

[Illustration: "Hortense crept down and went on her knees to me, praying

and imploring me to forgive her."]

"What's that?" asked Madge suddenly.

"Hanging herself," answered Pearl. "Judas hanged himself."

"Judas went out and hanged himself," corrected Maud, who had a passion

for accuracy of small details.

"Yes, of course, but that doesn't matter," said Pearl. "The hanging was

the principal thing. He could have hanged himself without going out, but

going out without hanging himself would not have been anything."

"Go on, Mother," cried a chorus of voices. "What happened next?"

"Well, nothing happened for a long time," Mrs. Ferrers replied. "We all

stayed up; I think nobody thought of going to bed that night at all--I

know Humphie and I never did--and at last the morning broke, and your

father and Browne began to make arrangements for putting notices in all

the papers, and when they had written them all, they went off in the

grey dim light to try to get them put into that day's papers. Oh! it

was a most dreadful night, and a terrible morning.

"I didn't like to put it into words, but all night long I had thought of

the Round Pond, and wondered if my Mignon was in there. I found out

afterwards that your father had thought of it too, and had made all

arrangements for having it dragged, though he wouldn't speak of it to

me, because he fancied I had not thought of it.

"And over and over again Humphie kept saying, 'I'm sure my precious lamb

knows perfectly well who she is and all about herself. I'm sure of it.

Why, we taught her years ago, ma'am, in case it ever happened she got

lost. "I'm Miss Mignon, and I belong to Booties," and "Captain Ferrers,

the Scarlet Lancers." She knew it all, years since.'

"'Yes, but, Humphie, has any one taught her 304, Queen's Gate, S.W.?' I

asked.

"'No,' said Humphie. 'I can't say that we have.'

"'Then she might fall in with hundreds and thousands of people in London

who wouldn't know Captain Ferrers from Captain Jones; and she might be

too frightened to remember anything about the Scarlet Lancers. It isn't

as if we were with the regiment still.'

"The morning wore on; nothing happened. Your father went to Scotland

Yard, and detectives came down and examined Hortense, who went off into

fresh hysterics, and threatened to go right away and drown herself there

and then; but there was no news of Mignon. And then Algy came in and

told me they had dragged the pond, and, thank God, she wasn't there;

though the suspense was almost unbearable as it was.

"But we seemed no nearer to hearing anything of her, and hardly knew

what to be doing next, though the day was wearing away, and it was

horrible to think of going through such another night as the one we had

just passed.

"And then--just at four o'clock--a handsome carriage drew up at the

door, and I heard Mignon's voice: 'Yes, I'm sure that's the house,' she

said.

"Oh! I don't know how I got to the door; I think I tore it open, and

ran down the steps to meet her. I don't remember what I said--I think I

cried. I'm sure your father nearly choked himself in trying to keep his

sobs back. We nearly smothered Mignon with kisses, and it was ever so

long before we had time to take any notice of the strange lady who had

brought her home.

"'I'm afraid you've had a terrible night,' she said, with tears in her

eyes. 'I found your dear little maid wandering about in South

Kensington--oh! right down in Onslow Gardens. I saw that she was not a

child accustomed to being out alone, and I asked her how it was. She

was perfectly cool and unconcerned.

"'"I've lost my maid," she said. "She sat down on a seat, and I was

picking daisies, and I don't know how, but I couldn't find her again."

"'"And what is your name?" I asked her.

"'"Oh! I'm Miss Mignon," she answered.

"'"And where do you live?" I inquired.

"'"Well, that's just what I can't remember. When I'm at home I live at

Ferrers Court, and when we were with the regiment, our address was, "The

Scarlet Lancers"--just that. But now we are in Town, I _can't_ remember

the name of the street. I thought when I lost Hortense that I should

know my way back, but I missed it somehow. And Mother will be so

uneasy," she ended.

"'Well,' said the lady, 'I told her she had much better come home with

me, and that I would try to find out Captain Ferrers; and so I did, but

without success. Then it occurred to me that as soon as the offices

were open I would telegraph to the Scarlet Lancers, asking for Captain

Ferrers' address. And so I did; and when the answer came back, it was

your country address--

"CAPTAIN FERRERS, _Ferrers Court,_

_Farlington, Blankshire._"

"'So I had no choice but to telegraph to Ferrers Court for your town

address. And oh, dear lady! my heart was aching for you all the time,

for I knew you must be suffering agonies," she ended, holding out her

hands to me.

"And so, of course, I had been," Mrs. Ferrers went on; "but 'all's well

that ends well'; and we at once taught Mignon the name of the house she

lived in, and, indeed, for a long time we sewed a little ticket on to

the hem of her frock, so that if she did forget it, she would easily

make some one understand where she wished to be taken."

"And Hortense--what did you do with her?" Pearl asked.

"Oh! we gave her a month's wages, and sent her away," Mrs. Ferrers

answered; "and now here is Browne with the tea, Pearl. Can you manage

it?"

"Oh! yes, Mother," Pearl answered. She was nearly fourteen, and loved

to make the tea now and then. "Oh! here's Miss Maitland coming! Miss

Maitland, _I_ am to pour out the tea. Mother says so."

"Willingly, so long as you don't scald yourself," said Miss Maitland,

smiling.

"And here is Father," cried Maud. "Bootles, Mother has been telling us

the dreadful story of how Mignon was lost."

"Has she, sweetheart? Well, we don't want to go through that particular

experience any more, do we, darling?"

"No! once was once too often," said Mrs. Ferrers, slipping her hand into

his.

"Two lumps of sugar," said Pearl, bringing her father his cup.

"And muffins!" added Maud.

Boy's Love

PART I

It was towards the close of the afternoon of a warm June day that a

short, sturdy, fair-haired boy, wearing a dark blue uniform with a touch

of scarlet here and there about it, sat down at a long desk to write a

letter. It was headed, "Duke of York's School, Chelsea, S.W.," and

began, "My dear Mother."

When he had got thus far, the boy paused, leaned his elbow upon the

desk, and rested his head upon his hand. And then after a minute the

hand slipped downward, and rubbed something out of his eyes--something

hard to get rid of, apparently--for presently one bright drop after

another forced its way through his fingers and fell on to the desk

beneath.

And yet, truth to tell, even those bright drops did not help to get rid

of the something, the something which had a firm foothold in the heart

below, making it swell till it was well-nigh to bursting. This was his

letter:--

"My DEAR MOTHER,--This is my last day at school. To-morrow I am going

to Warnecliffe to join the 25th Dragoons; they call them the Black

Horse. I am very glad to leave school and be a soldier like my father,

but,"--and here the blurred writing was an evidence of the trouble in

the boy's heart--"but I don't like losing my chum. You know, he is Tom

Boynton, and we have been chums for more than three years. He is

orderly to the dispenser, and has leave to go out almost any time. I am

very fond of him, and haven't any other chum, though he has another chum

besides me. I think he likes me best. I do love him, mother; and I lay

awake all last night crying. Tom cried, too, a little. He is going to

the Scarlet Lancers, and I don't know when I shall see him any more. I

wish we were going into the same regiment.

"I got your letter on my fourteenth birthday, the day before yesterday.

Tom is seven months older than me. He would have left school before if

he had not been orderly to the dispenser. We both got the V.G. Jack

Green is going into my regiment. I shall come home when I get my

furlough--and if Tom gets his at the same time, can I bring him too?

Tom hasn't any father or mother at all. This is a very long letter. I

hope you are very well.

"I am your affectionate son,

EDWARD PETRES."

He read the letter over, brushing his cuff across his eyes when he came

to that part of the paper which showed traces of tears, and then he

folded it and directed the envelope, after which he had finished. Then

he got up, took his cap, and with the letter in his hand, went forlornly

out of the large room.

When he had got rid of it, he went in search of his chum, Tom Boynton,

whom he met just coming away from his last service as "Dispenser's

Orderly" with a heaving chest and eyes almost as red and swollen as poor

Ted's own.

Ted turned back with him and took hold of his arm.

"Taken your last physic out, Tom?" said he, with a gallant attempt at

manly indifference to the dreaded parting of the morrow.

"Aye," returned Tom in a choking voice and with eyes carefully averted.

The dispenser had just bade him "good-bye," and had told him in wishing

him "God speed" that he was very sorry to lose him, and would most

likely have to wait a long time before he again had help as efficient;

and then he had given him a tip of half-a-crown, and had shaken hands

with him. So Tom's heart was quite as full as Ted's, and of the two,

being the older and bigger and stronger, he was far the most anxious to

hide the emotion he felt.

"Have you seen Jack?" he asked, giving his head a bit of a shake and

crushing his trouble down right bravely.

"Jack Green?" asked Ted shortly. He was not a little jealous of Jack

Green, who was his chum's other chum.

"Aye! Where is he?"

"I haven't seen him--not all the afternoon," returned Ted curtly.

"I'll go and find him," said Tom, disengaging his arm from Ted's close

grasp.

The two lads parted then, for Tom swung away in the direction of the

playground, leaving Ted staring blankly after him; and there he stood

for full five minutes, until, his eyes blinded with pain, he could see

no longer, and then he turned away and hid his face upon his arm against

a friendly sheltering wall.

[Illustration: Hid his face upon his arm against a friendly sheltering

wall]

But by-and-by his jealousy of Jack Green began to wear away. Perhaps,

after all, he argued, Tom only wanted to hide his trouble. Tom was a

big lad, and was even more ashamed than Ted of being betrayed into

weeping and such-like exhibitions of weakness. So, by the time they

turned in for the night--the last night--Ted had forgotten the pain of

the afternoon.

"Tom," said he, going over to his chum's bed, which was next to his,

"Tom, I've come to talk to you."

"Yes," whispered Tom in reply. The lights were all out then, and most

of the boys were fast asleep, so big Tom drew his chum's head down to

his, and put his arm round his neck.

"It's the last night, Tom," said Ted in a strangled voice.

"Yes," said Tom, in a whisper.

"We've been chums for three years and more," Ted went on, "and we've

never been out of friends yet. P'raps I shall get an exchange to your

reg'ment yet."

"Or me to yours," answered Tom eagerly.

"I shan't have no chum now," Ted went on, taking no notice of Tom's

words.

"You'll have Jack Green," said Tom.

"Yes, there'll be Jack Green, but he ain't you," Ted answered

mournfully. "He'll never be my chum like you was, Tom; but if ever I've

a chance of doing him a good turn, I will, 'cause _you_ liked him."

"Will you, Ted?" eagerly.

"Yes, I will," answered Ted steadily. "And, Tom, it's our last time

together to-night--we mayn't ever get together again."

"I know," sighed Tom.

"I wish," Ted said hesitatingly--"oh, Tom," with a sorrowful catch in

his voice and a great gulp in his throat, "I--I--do wish you'd kiss

me--just once."

And so Tom Boynton put his other arm around his chum's neck, and the two

lads, who had been friends for three years, held one another for a

minute in a close embrace; an instant later Ted Petres tore himself away

and sprang into his bed, dragging the clothes over his head, and burying

his face in the pillow in a vain attempt to stifle his sobs. And before

another day had gone over their heads they had parted, to meet

again--when--and where?

PART II

Seven years had gone by. A fierce and scorching sun shone down with

glaring radiance upon long stretches of arid and sandy country, covered

sparsely with coarse rank grass and brushwood--the country which is

called the Soudan; the country where so many brilliant lives ended,

sacrificed in the cause of a crusade as hopeless as the crusade of the

children--who sought to win Heaven with glory where the flower of the

nations had failed--sacrificed to the death in the too late attempt to

succour a gallant soldier, the noble victim of an ignoble policy.

And between the brilliant glaring sky and the sun-scorched arid earth,

there hung a heavy cloud of gunpowder smoke while the flower of two

races fought desperately for conquest. In the midst a square of British

troops, with set white faces and sternly compressed lips, with watchful

eyes well on the alert, and in each brave heart the knowledge that the

fight was for life or death. And on all hands swarms of stalwart

Soudanese, reckless of life and counting death their chiefest gain,

shouting on Allah and the prophet to aid them, and dying happy in the

certain faith of entering paradise if but one Christian dog should fall

to their hand.

Oh, what a scene it was! Only a handful of men at bay, while mass after

mass of the enemy came down upon them like the waves of the incoming

tide upon the sea shore; and as at times a rock-bound coast gives way

and falls before the encroaching advances of the ocean, so that

ill-fated square gave way before the overwhelming numbers of the

soldiers of the Prophet, and in a moment all chance for our men seemed

over.

Ay; but the British lion can up and fight again after he has had a roll

over which would crush the life out of most of his foes. And so that

day, by sheer hard desperate fighting, the square closed up and was

formed again, and of all the enemy who had dashed into the midst of it,

not one lived to tell the tale.

But, oh! what though the enemy fell half a score to one? How many a

brave life was laid down that day, and how many a bullet had found its

billet was proved by the shrieks of agony which rose and rang above all

the tumult of the fight.

It happened that our old friend, Ted Petres, no longer a short and

sturdy boy but a fine-grown young fellow of one-and-twenty now, found

himself not very far from the place where the square had been

broken--found himself fighting hard to win the day and check the mad

on-rush of the sons of the Prophet. As the ranks closed up once more,

he, as did most others who were in the rear, turned his attention to the

seething mass of blacks thus trapped, and to his horror saw his comrade,

Jack Green, down on his knees, striking wildly here and there against

the attacks of three Soudanese. Quick as thought--the thought that this

was the first time he had ever had a chance of fulfilling his last

promise to his boy's love, Tom--Ted flew to his aid, sent one shouting

gentleman to paradise, and neatly disabled the right arm of a second

just as the third put his spear through poor Jack's lungs.

To cleave him to the teeth was but the work of a moment, and Ted Petres

accomplished it before the follower of the Prophet had time to withdraw

his spear! but, alas! poor Jack's life was welling out of him faster

than the sands run out of a broken hour-glass! It was no use to lift

him up and look round for help; Jack Green had seen his last service,

and Ted knew it. But he did his best for him in those last moments, and

help came in the person of one of their officers, one D'Arcy de

Bolingbroke who, though badly wounded in the arm himself, was yet able

to lend a hand.

"Petres, you're a splendid fellow," he exclaimed. "I shall recommend you

if we live to get out of this. You ought to get the Cross for this."

"Thank you, sir," returned Ted gratefully.

And then between them they managed to get the poor fellow to the

doctors, who were hard at work behind a poor shelter of wagons and

store-cases. But it was too late, for when they laid him down Jack Green

was dead and at ease for ever.

One of the hospital orderlies turned from a case at hand, and Ted

uttered a cry of surprise at the sight of him. "Why, _Tom_!" he cried,

starting up to take his hand, "I didn't even know you were with us."

There was no answering gleam of pleasure on Tom Boynton's face; he

stared at Ted, stared at the face of the dead man lying at their feet,

then dropped upon his knees beside him. "Oh, Jack, Jack, speak to me,"

he cried imploringly.

[Illustration: "Oh, Jack, Jack, speak to me," he cried imploringly.]

"It's too late, Tom," said Ted, bending down. "I did my best, but it

was too late, old man. I did my best."

Tom Boynton looked up in his old chum's face. "You let him die?" he

asked.

"We were three to one," returned the other humbly.

"You did your best, and you let him die," repeated Tom blankly. "And he

was my chum," he added miserably.

"Tom," cried Ted passionately, "I was your chum too."

"_You!_" with infinite scorn; then bending down he kissed the dead face

tenderly.

Ted Petres turned away, blind with pain. He might have won the Cross,

but he had lost his friend--the friend who had loved him less than that

other chum of whom he had not the heart now to feel jealous.

And that was how they met again--that was the end of Tom Petres' boy's

love.

Yum-Yum: A Pug

CHAPTER I

For a pug Yum-Yum was perfect, and let me tell you it takes a great many

special sorts of beauty to give you a pug which in any way approaches

perfection.

First, your true pug must be of a certain colour, a warm fawn-colour; it

must have a proper width of chest and a bull-doggish bandiness about the

legs; it must have a dark streak from the top of its head along its back

towards the tail; it must have a double twist to that same tail, and

three rolls of fat or loose skin, set like a collar about its throat; it

must have a square mouth, an ink-black--no, no, a soot-black mask (that

is, face) adorned with an infinitesimal nose, a pair of large and

lustrous goggle-eyes, and five moles. I believe, too, that there is

something very important about the shape and colouring of its toes; but

I really don't know much about pugs, and this list of perfections is

only what I have been able to gather from various friends who do

understand the subject.

So let me get on with my story, and say at once that Yum-Yum possessed

all these perfections. She may have had others, for she was without

doubt a great beauty of her kind, and she certainly was blessed with an

admirable temper, an angelic temper, mild as new milk, and as patient as

Job's.

And Yum-Yum belonged to a little lady called Nannie Mackenzie.

[Illustration: Yum-Yum: A Pug.]

The Mackenzies, I must tell you, were not rich people, or in any way

persons of importance; they had no relations, and apparently belonged to

no particular family; but they were very nice people, and very good

people, and lived in one of a large row of houses on the Surrey side of

the river Thames, at that part which is called Putney.

Mr. Mackenzie was something in the city, and had not apparently hit upon

a good thing, for there was not much money to spare in the house at

Putney. I rather fancy that he was managing clerk to a tea-warehouse,

but am not sure upon that point. Mrs. Mackenzie had been a governess,

but of course she had not started life as a teacher of small children;

no, she had come into the world in an upper room of a pretty country

vicarage, where the olive branches grew like stonecrop, and most

visitors were in the habit of reminding the vicar of certain lines in

the hundred and twenty-seventh Psalm.

In course of time this particular olive plant, like her sisters, picked

up a smattering of certain branches of knowledge, and, armed thus, went

out into the wide world to make her own way. Her knowledge was not

extensive; it comprised a fluent power of speaking her mother-tongue

with a pleasant tone and correct accent, but without any very

well-grounded idea of why and wherefore it was so. She also knew a

little French of doubtful quality, and a little less German that was

distinctly off colour. She could copy a drawing in a woodenly accurate

kind of way, with stodgy skies made chiefly of Chinese white, and

exceedingly woolly trees largely helped out with the same useful

composition. At that time there was no sham about Nora Browne's

pretensions to art--there they were, good, bad, or indifferent, and you

might take them for what they were worth, which was not much. It was

not until she had been Mrs. Mackenzie for some years that she took to

"doing" the picture-galleries armed with catalogue and pencil, and

talked learnedly about _chiar-oscuro_, about distance and atmosphere,

about this school and that, this method or the other treatment. There

were frequenters of the art-galleries of London to whom Mrs. Mackenzie,

_nee_ Nora Browne, was a delightful study; but then, on the other hand,

there was a much larger number of persons than these whom she impressed

deeply, and who even went so far as to speak of her with bated breath as

"a power" on the press, while, as a matter of fact, Mrs. Mackenzie's

little paragraphs were very innocent, and not very remunerative, and

generally won for the more or less weekly society papers in which they

appeared a reputation for employing an art-critic who knew a good deal

more about the frames than about the pictures within them.

However, all this is a little by the way! I really only give these

details of Mrs. Mackenzie's doings to show that the family was, by

virtue of their mother being a dabbler in journalism, in touch with the

set which I saw the other day elegantly described as "Upper Bohemia."

Now in the circles of "Upper Bohemia" nobody is anybody unless they can

do something--unless they can paint pictures or umbrella vases and

milking-stools, unless they can sing attractively, or play some

instrument beyond the ordinary average of skill, unless they can write

novels or make paragraphs for the newspapers, unless they can act or

give conjuring entertainments, or unless they can compose pretty little

songs with a distinct _motif_, or pieces for the piano which nobody can

make head or tail of. It is very funny that there should be so wide a

difference necessary between the composition of music for the voice and

music for the piano. For the first there must be a little something to

catch the ear, a little swing in the refrain, a something to make the

head wag to and fro; the words may be ever so silly if they are only

bordering on the pathetic, and if the catch in the refrain is taking

enough the rest of the song may be as silly as the words, and still it

will be a success. But with a piece it is different. For that the air

must be resolutely turned inside out, as it were, and apparently if the

composer chances to light on one or two pretty bits, he goes back again

and touches them up so as to make them match all the rest. It seems odd

this, but the world does not stop to listen, but talks its hardest, and

as at the end it says "How lovely!" I suppose it is all right.

But all these people stand in the very middle of "Upper Bohemia," and,

as a pebble dropped into the water makes circles and ever-widening

circles on the smooth surface, so do the circles which constitute "Upper

Bohemia" widen and widen until eventually they merge into the world

beyond! There are the amateurs and the reciters, and the artists who

put "decorative" in front of the word which denotes their calling, and

then put a hyphen between the two! And there are the thought-readers,

and the palmists, and the people who have invented a new religion! All

these are in the ever-widening circles of "Upper Bohemia." And outside

these again come the fashionable lady-dressmakers and the art-milliners,

the trained nurses and the professors of cooking. After these you may

go on almost _ad libitum_, until the circle melts into professional life

on the one hand and fashionable life on the other.

You have perhaps been wondering, my gentle reader, what all this can

possibly have to do with the pug, Yum-Yum, which belonged to a little

girl named Nannie Mackenzie. Well, it really has something to do with

it, as I will show you. First, because it tells you that this was the

set of people to whom the Mackenzies belonged and took a pride in

belonging. It is true that they had a stronger claim to belong to a city

set; but you see Mrs. Mackenzie had been brought up in the bosom of the

Church, and thought more of the refined society in "Upper Bohemia" than

she did of all the money bags to be found east of Temple Bar! In this I

think she was right; in modern London it does not do for the lion to lie

down with the lamb, or for earthenware pipkins to try sailing down the

stream with the iron pots. In "Upper Bohemia," owing to the haziness of

her right of entry, Mrs. Mackenzie was quite an important person; in the

city, owing to various circumstances--shortness of money, most of

all--Mrs. Mackenzie was nowhere.

Mrs. Mackenzie had not followed the example of her father and mother

with regard to the size of her family; she had only three children, two

girls and a boy--Rosalind, Wilfrid, and Nannie.

At this time Nannie was only ten years old, a pretty, sweet, engaging

child, with frank blue eyes and her mother's pretty trick of manner, a

child who was never so happy as when she had a smart sash on with a

clean white frock in readiness for any form of party that had happened

to come in her way.

Wilf was different. He was a grave, quiet boy of thirteen, already

working for a scholarship at St. Paul's School, and meaning to be a

great man some day, and meanwhile spending all his spare hours

collecting insects and gathering specimens of fern leaves together.

Above Wilf was Rosalind, and Rosalind was sixteen, a tall, willowy slip

of a girl, with a pair of fine eyes and a passion for art. I do not

mean a passion for making the woodenly accurate drawings with stodgy

clouds and woolly trees which had satisfied her mother's soul and made

her so eminently competent to criticise the work of other folk--no, not

that, but a real passion for real art.

Now the two Mackenzie girls had had a governess for several years, a

mildly amiable young lady of the same class, and possessed of about the

same amount of knowledge as Mrs. Mackenzie herself had been. She too

made wooden drawings with stodgy clouds and woolly trees, and she

painted flowers--such flowers as made Rosalind's artistic soul rise

within her and loathe Miss Temple and all her works, nay, sometimes

loathe even those good qualities which were her chiefest charm.

Rosalind wanted to go further a-field in the art world than either her

mother's paragraphs or Miss Temple's copies; she wanted to join some

well-known art-class, and, giving up everything else, go in for real

hard, grinding work.

But it could not be done, for, as I have said, money was not plentiful

in the house at Putney, and there was always the boy to be thought of,

and also there was Nannie's education to finish. To let Rosalind join

an expensive art-class would mean being without Miss Temple, and Mrs.

Mackenzie felt that to do that would be to put a great wrong upon little

Nannie, for which she would justly be able to reproach her all her life

long.

"It would not do, my dear," she said to Rosalind, when her elder

daughter was one day holding forth on the glories which might one day be

hers if only she could get her foot upon this, the lowest rung of the

ladder by which she would fain climb to fame and fortune; "and really I

don't see the sense or reason of your being so anxious to follow art as

a profession. I am sure you paint very well. That little sketch of

wild roses you did last week was exquisite; indeed, I showed it to Miss

Dumerique when I was looking over her new art-studio in Bond Street.

She said it would be charming painted on a thrush's-egg ground for a

milking-stool or a tall table, or used for a whole suite of bedroom or

boudoir furniture. I'm sure, my dear, you might make quite an

income----"

"Did Miss Dumerique _offer_ to do one--to let me do any work of that

kind for her?" Rosalind broke in impatiently.

"No, she did not," Mrs. Mackenzie admitted, "but----"

"But, depend upon it, she is at work on the idea long before this,"

cried Rosalind. She knew Miss Dumerique, and had but small faith in any

income from that quarter, several of her most cherished designs having

_suggested_ ideas to that gifted lady.

"If I only had twenty pounds, twenty pounds," Rosalind went on, "it

would give me such a help, such a lift I should learn so much if I could

spend twenty pounds; and it's such a little, only the price of the dress

Mrs. Arlington had on the other day, and she said it was so cheap--'Just

a cheap little gown, my dear, to wear in the morning.' Oh! if only I

had the price of that gown."

"Rosalind, my dear," cried Mrs. Mackenzie, "don't say that--it sounds so

like envy, and envy is a hateful quality."

"Yes, I know it is, but I do want twenty pounds so badly," answered

Rosalind in a hopeless tone.

Mrs. Mackenzie began to sob weakly. "If I could give it to you,

Rosalind, you know I would," she wailed, "but I haven't got it. I work

and work and work and strain every nerve to give you the advantages; ay,

and more than the advantages that I had when I was your age. But I

can't give you what I haven't got--it's unreasonable to ask it or to

expect it."

"I didn't either ask or expect it," said Rosalind; but she said it under

her breath, and felt that, after all, her mother was right--she could

not give what she had not got.

It was hard on them both--on the girl that she could not have, on the

mother that she could not give! Rosalind from this time forth kept

silence about her art, because she knew that it was useless to hope for

the impossible--kept silence, that is, from all but one person. And yet

she could not keep her thoughts from flying ever and again to the

art-classes and the twenty pounds which would do so much for her. So up

in the room at the top of the house, where she dabbled among her scanty

paints and sketched out pictures in any colours that she happened to

have, and even went so far in the way of economy as to utilize the

leavings of her mother's decorative paints--hedge-sparrow's-egg-blue,

Arabian brown, eau de Nil, Gobelin, and others equally unsuitable for

her purpose,--Rosalind Mackenzie dreamed dreams and saw visions--visions

of a great day when she would have paints in profusion and art-teaching

galore. There was not the smallest prospect of her dreams and visions

coming true, any more than, without teaching and without paints, there

was of her daubs growing into pictures, and finding places on the line

at the Academy and the New. It is always so with youth. It hopes and

hopes against hope, and when hope is dead, there is no longer any youth;

it is dead too.

"There are youthful dreamers,

Building castles fair, with stately stairways;

Asking blindly

Of the Future what it cannot give them."

CHAPTER II

But there was one person to whom Rosalind Mackenzie poured out all that

was in her mind,--that was her ten-year-old sister, Nannie. In Nannie

she found a ready and a sympathetic listener; moreover, in Nannie's mind

there was no doubt, no hesitation in believing that if Rosalind only had

that twenty pounds there would be nothing to keep her back, nothing to

prevent her sailing on right ahead into the roseate realms of fame and

glory! If only she had that twenty pounds!

Now Nannie undoubtedly had a very gay and jovial disposition. She was

always ready for fun and excitement, and had no tendency or any desire

to carve out a line for herself, as her brother and sister had both had

before they had reached her age. Yet she had what was better in many

people's eyes, a very tender heart and a very affectionate nature; and

her tender heart was wrung and wrung again at the thought of her

sister's unsatisfied longings and the great future that was being

blighted, all for the want of twenty pounds.

Yet what could a little girl of ten years old do towards getting such a

sum as that together? Just nothing! Why, if the sum was shillings

instead of pounds, she would still find it utterly beyond her power and

out of her grasp! She thought and she thought, but thinking did not

help matters! She lay awake at night puzzling her little brain, but

that did no good, and Nannie's face grew a good deal paler, and set her

mother wondering if the house was unhealthy, or thinking that perhaps

the air from the river was damp and injurious.

It was about this time that Yum-Yum, the pug which had been given to

Nannie by one of her mother's friends two years before, suddenly became

the person of the most importance in the household at Putney; for behold

one fine morning when Nannie came down to breakfast, Yum-Yum presented

her with three babies, three dear wee pugs, which sent Nannie into

ecstasies and made her forget for a few days all about Rosalind's

unsatisfied longings, and her craving after higher things than at

present were attainable to her.

"You think they're real beauties, don't you, Father?" said Nannie

anxiously.

"Yes, they are great beauties," said Mr. Mackenzie, holding one little

snub-nosed pug up and examining it closely.

"And what should you think that they are worth, Father?" Nannie asked.

"Worth? Oh! that would depend a good deal on how they turn out. Their

pedigree is a very fair one; and at the end of six weeks or two months

they might be worth three or four guineas apiece--more, for that

matter."

Nannie fairly gasped, and she clutched hold of her father's arm. "Oh!

daddy dear," she exclaimed, "do you really, really think I might be able

to get _any_ thing like that for them?"

"Oh! yes, I think so," he answered, smiling at her earnestness. "But,

Nannie, why do you want this money so much? Have you set your mind on a

watch and chain?"

"Oh! no, dear daddy," she answered eagerly, "it's not for myself at all;

it's poor Rosalind I'm thinking of"--and forthwith she poured into her

father's surprised but sympathetic ear all the story of Rosalind's

artistic longings, her craving for better art-lessons, for all the good

things that may be had for the sum of twenty pounds.

Long before the story came to an end Mr. Mackenzie had drawn his little

daughter very closely to him, and I fancy he was thinking, when she came

to the end of it, more of the goodness of his Nannie's heart than of the

greatness of Rosalind's future.

"My Nannie," he said tenderly, "my generous, kind-hearted little woman!

Rosalind ought to love you dearly for----"

"Rosalind does love me dearly, daddy," Nannie explained; "only she can't

help wanting to be a painter--it's in her, you know, and it's choking

her. And Rosalind doesn't know a word about it. She wouldn't want me to

sell Yummy's pups for her. Only you know, daddy, we can't keep three

dogs besides Yummy; and we may just as well sell them as give them away,

and then Rosalind would be able to have _some_ of the lessons that she

wants so badly."

Mr. Mackenzie smiled at Nannie's voluble information. "Well, well, you

shall sell the pups and make Rosalind happy," he said; then after a

moment added, "You know, Nannie, that I am not rich--in fact, I am very

poor, but I will make the sum up to ten pounds, and Rosalind can go on

thus far, at all events."

Well, a few weeks passed over, and the secret was rigidly kept between

Mr. Mackenzie and Nannie. More than once Mrs. Mackenzie grumbled at the

expense and the trouble Yummy's three babies were in the kitchen, and

one afternoon when she came in from Town, she said--"Oh, Nannie, Lady

Gray would like to have one of Yummy's puppies. I told her I thought

you would let her have first choice."

"Then her ladyship must pay five guineas for it, my dear," said Mr.

Mackenzie promptly. "Nannie and I are going to sell the puppies this

time."

Mrs. Mackenzie rather lifted her eyebrows. "Oh! if that is so," she

said, "of course Lady Gray must stand on one side. But what are you

going to do with the money, Nannie? Buy yourself a watch?"

"No, Mother, but----" and Nannie looked anxiously at her father, who

quickly came to the rescue, and evaded the question--which at that

moment was an awkward one, for Rosalind was present.

It is probable that Mr. Mackenzie gave his wife just a hint of what was

a-foot, for she asked no more questions about the puppies, and made no

further complaints of the extra food and milk which Yummy required at

this time.

And in due course, after a good deal of correspondence through the

columns of the _Queen_ and the _Exchange and Mart_, one by one the three

little pugs went away from the house at Putney to homes of their own,

and Nannie in return became the proud possessor of no fewer than eight

golden sovereigns.

To these Mr. Mackenzie added the two which he had promised to make up

the sum of ten pounds, and then Nannie had the supreme joy of going to

Rosalind--who was hard at work in her studio painting a sunset in tints

so startling that her artist soul was sick within her--and flinging her

offering in a shower into her lap.

"Why, what is this, Nannie?" Rosalind cried, half frightened.

"It's your lessons, Rosie," Nannie cried, "or at least as much of them

as you can get for ten pounds; and I'm so glad, dear, dear Rosie, to be

able to help you, you don't know," and happy Nannie flung her arms round

her sister, almost crying for joy.

"But where did you get it? Oh, the pugs! I forgot them," Rosalind

cried. "Oh! but Nannie, my dear, darling, unselfish sister, I can't

take your money in this way----"

"You must," Nannie answered promptly.

"But your watch--you've longed so for a watch, you know," said the elder

girl.

"Well, I have, but I can long a bit more," returned Nannie

philosophically. "I shall like it all the better when I do get it."

"I _can't_ take it, darling," Rosalind urged.

"Oh! yes, you can, if you try," continued Nannie. "And as for my watch,

why, when you are a great swell painter you can buy me one--a real

beauty--and I shall like it _ever_ so much better than any other one in

all the world."

Rosalind clasped Nannie close to her heart.

"My Nannie, my Nannie," she cried, "I shall never be as brave and

helpful as you are. While I have been grumbling, and growling, and

railing at fate, you have been putting your shoulder to the wheel,

and----. Oh! Nannie, Nannie, it is good of you! It is good! I shall

never forget it. The first penny I earn, dear, shall be yours; and I

will never forget what my dear little sister has done for me,

never--never, as long as I live."

A few days after this Rosalind was hard at work in the studio of the

artist for whose teaching she had longed for so many weary months. And

how she did work!

"I have one pupil who _works_," her maestro got into the habit of

saying. "Some of you have a natural gift; you have a correct eye, and

you have firm touch. Every one of you might make progress if you tried.

But there is only one of you all who works. That is Miss Mackenzie."

But, all too soon, Rosalind's ten pounds melted away, until they had all

gone. And, as there was no more where they had come from, Rosalind's

lessons must also come to an end!

"Oh! Mother, can't you do _any_thing to help Rosie?" Nannie cried in

piteously beseeching accents the night before Rosalind was to go to the

studio for the last time.

"Nannie," answered Mrs. Mackenzie reproachfully, "don't you think I

would if I could?"

"Daddy, can you do nothing?" Nannie implored.

"My little one, I am so poor just now," he answered.

So poor Nannie went to bed in bitter disappointment for her sister's

trial. She felt that it was very, very hard upon Rosalind, who had

worked almost day and night that she might profit by every moment of the

time she was at the studio. Yes, it was very, very hard.

However, Rosalind was brave, and put a good face upon the matter.

"Don't worry about it, my Nannie," she said just before she got into

bed. "After all, I've learnt a great deal while I have been able to go

to Mr. Raymond, and perhaps, after a time, daddy may be able to help me

to go again, and I may do some work that will sell, and then I shall be

able to go again. So don't worry yourself, my darling, for you can't

help me this time. You see, Yummy hasn't got any more pups to sell."

But Nannie had got an idea, and all through the hours of that long night

it stayed with her with the pertinacity of a nightmare. Still, whatever

it was, she did not say a word about it to Rosalind, and when Rosalind

looked round for her when she was ready to start for the studio in the

morning, she was nowhere to be seen.

"Where is Nannie?" she asked.

"Oh! she's out in the garden," Mrs. Mackenzie answered.

"Well, I haven't time to go down; but don't let her worry about me, will

you, Mother?" said Rosalind anxiously.

"No, no; I will look after her," Mrs. Mackenzie answered vaguely.

So Rosalind went off fairly satisfied.

"I have come for my last lesson, Mr. Raymond," she said, with rather an

uncertain smile, as she bade the maestro good-morning.

"Oh! well, well; we must have a talk about that," he answered

good-naturedly.

Rosalind shook her head a little sadly, and took her place without

delay--to her every moment was precious.

But, though this was her last lesson, she was not destined to do much

work that day, for, as soon as she opened her little paint-box, which

she had taken home the previous day that she might do some work in the

early morning, she saw lying on the top of the paints a little note,

addressed in Nannie's round child's hand to "Rosalind."

The next moment maestro and pupils were alike startled by the sight of

Rosalind Mackenzie with her face hidden in her hands, sobbing as if her

heart would break.

"My dear child," cried the maestro, running to her side, "how now! What

is the matter? Pray tell me, my dear, tell me."

[Illustration: "'My dear child, what is the matter?'"]

Then little by little Rosalind sobbed out the whole story--how she had

longed and pined for these lessons, how her little sister Nannie had

sacrificed herself to help her, and then at last she put into the

maestro's hand the little note which she had brought from home in the

paint-box.

"Darling Rosalind," the maestro read aloud, "I thought of a way to help

you last night, but I did not tell you about it, because I know you

would stop it. You know that Mrs. Clarke, who bought Yummy's little

son, said she would give ten guineas for her any day, so I'm going to

get Father to take her there this afternoon, and you shall have the

money. I don't think I shall mind parting with her much.--NANNIE."

Mr. Raymond took off his glasses and wiped them.

"Upon my word," he muttered in an uncertain voice; "upon my word!"

"The darling!" cried one pupil.

"Is she fond of the dog?" asked another.

"Fond of her!" Rosalind echoed; "why, Yummy is the very idol of her

heart. She has had her from a puppy; it would break the child's heart

to part with her. Why, I would die," she said passionately, "before I

would let her do it. I would go out as a charwoman, and scrub floors

for my living all the days of my life, rather than do such a mean thing.

Mr. Raymond," she went on, "I must go back at once, or I may be too

late. I must lose my lesson--I can't help that. But I must go

back--for, look at the poor little letter; all tears and----" and there

Rosalind broke down into tears and sobs again; but, all the same, she

gathered her brushes together, and began to pack up all her belongings.

The maestro stood for a moment in deep thought, but, as Rosalind put her

hat on and resolutely dried her eyes, he spoke to the others who were

standing around.

"I should very much like to see this out," he said, "and, if you will

set me free this morning, I will give you each an extra lesson to make

up for the interrupted one to-day. What do you say?"

"Yes! yes!" they all cried.

So the old painter and Rosalind went back to the house at Putney

together, and at the door Rosalind put an eager question to the maid who

opened it for them.

"My mother?" she asked.

"Mrs. Mackenzie is dressing to go out, Miss Rosalind," the maid

answered.

"And Miss Nannie?"

"I believe Miss Nannie is in the garden," was the reply.

So Rosalind led the maestro out into the garden, where they soon espied

Nannie curled up in a big chair, with Yummy in her arms. She did not

notice their approach; indeed, she was almost asleep, worn out by the

violence of her grief at the coming parting with Yummy, and was lying

with her eyes closed, her cheek resting against the dog's satin-smooth

head.

Rosalind flung herself down upon her knees before the chair, and took

child and dog into her arms.

"My own precious little sister, my unselfish darling," she cried; "as if

I would let you part with the dear doggy for my sake! I couldn't,

Nannie, my dear, I couldn't--I couldn't part with Yummy myself. But I

shall never forget it, Nannie--my dear, unselfish Nannie."

[Illustration: "My own precious little sister, my unselfish darling,"

she cried.]

Nannie looked past her sister towards the tall old painter standing

behind her.

"Your lessons," she faltered, with quivering lips.

"My little heroine," said the old painter tenderly, "your sister is my

favourite among all my pupils. I would rather," he went on, laying his

hand on Rosalind's shoulder--"I would rather teach one real worker such

as she is for love, than fifty of the usual kind who come to me. She is

just the real worker one might expect with such a sister."

"You will go on teaching Rosalind," Nannie cried in a bewildered way,

"for nothing?"

"I will, gladly," the maestro answered; "and, in return, you shall come

one day, and bring the pug, and let me paint a picture of you both."

And then the old man went away, leaving the sisters, in the fulness of

their joy, together.

For him this had been somewhat of a new experience--a pleasant one.

They were young, and he was old; but he went back to his pictures with a

heart fresh and young as it had not been for years, asking of himself a

question out of the pages of a favourite poet: "Shall I thank God for

the green summer, and the mild air, and the flowers, and the stars, and

all that makes the world so beautiful, and not for the good and

beautiful beings I have known in it?"

Our Ada Elizabeth

"The sublime mystery of Providence goes on in silence, and gives no

explanation of itself, no answer to our impatient

questionings."--_Hyperion_.

CHAPTER I

The Dicki'sons lived in Blankhampton. Not in the fashionable suburb of

Greater Gate, for the Dicki'sons were not fashionable people--far from

it, indeed. Nor yet in that exclusive part which immediately surrounds

the cathedral, which Blankhampton folk familiarly call "the Parish."

No; they lived in neither of these, but away on the poorer side of the

town and in the narrowest of narrow lanes--so narrow, indeed, that if a

cart came along the passer-by was glad to get into a doorway, and stand

there trembling until the danger was past and the road free again.

I must tell you that, although they were always _called_ the Dicki'sons,

their name was spelt in the usual way, with an "n" in the middle and

without an apostrophe; but, as their neighbours made an invariable rule

of pronouncing the word, as they did themselves, in the way in which I

have written it, I will take the liberty of continuing the custom in

this story.

For their position, they were rather well-to-do. Mr. Dicki'son, the

father of the family, was a plumber and glazier--not in business for

himself, but the foreman of a business of some importance in the town;

and Mr. Dicki'son was a plain man of somewhat reserved disposition.

There were ill-natured and rude persons in that neighbourhood who did

not hesitate to describe Mr. Dicki'son as "a sulky beast"; but then the

opinion of such was scarcely worth having, and even they had not a word

to say against him beyond a general complaint of his unsociable temper.

They were lively people who lived round about Gardener's Lane. The

fathers worked hard all the week, and mostly got frightfully drunk on

Saturday nights, when they went home and knocked their dirty, slipshod

wives about, just by way of letting them know their duty to their lords

and masters. And after this sort of thing had subsided, the wives

generally gave the children a good cuffing all round, just by way of

letting them know that they need not hope to take any liberties with

their mothers because of their fathers' little ways; and then they all

got quieted down for the night, and got up late on Sunday morning with

headaches. If the day was fine, the men sat dull and sodden in the

sunshine on the pavement in the wide street out of which Gardener's Lane

ran, propping their backs against the wall and stretching their legs

out, greatly to the danger and annoyance of passers-by; and while the

men thus smoked the pipe of peace, the women stood in groups at their

doorways, scratching their elbows and comparing their bruises; and the

children, who had gone to sleep the previous night in tears and

tribulation, found keen enjoyment in watching for the parson and the few

people who went to the church round the corner, and called names and

uncomplimentary terms after them as they turned in at the gates which

led thereto.

Now, as Mr. Dicki'son was a person of a reserved and taciturn

disposition, who was distinctly respectable in all his doings, who never

got drunk, and openly despised any one else who did, it will readily be

believed that he was not popular in the neighbourhood of Gardener's

Lane. He was not anxious to be popular, and had it not been that the

house in which he lived was his own, and that it suited his family as a

home, Gardener's Lane would not have counted him among its inhabitants.

Mrs. Dicki'son was a good deal younger than her husband--a pretty, weak,

sentimental woman, rather gushing in disposition, and very injudicious.

She was always overwhelmed with troubles and babies; although, as a

matter of fact, she had but six children altogether, and one of them

died while still an infant. Gerty was twelve years old, and Ada

Elizabeth just a year younger; then came a gap of two years ere a boy,

William Thomas, was born. William Thomas, if he had lived, would, I

fancy, have inherited his father's reserved disposition, for, I must

say, a more taciturn babe it has never at any time been my lot to

encounter. He was a dreadful trouble to his dissatisfied mother, who

felt, and said, that there was something uncanny about a child who

objected to nothing--who seemed to know no difference between his own

thumb and the bottle which fed him, and would go on sucking as patiently

at the one as at the other; who would lie with as much apparent comfort

on his face as on his back, and seemed to find no distinction between

his mother's arms and a corner of the wide old sofa, which earlier and

later babies resented as a personal insult, and made remarks

accordingly. However, after six months of this monotonous existence,

William Thomas was removed from this lower sphere, passing away with the

same dignity as he had lived, after which he served a good purpose

still, which was to act as a model to all the other babies who resented

the corner of the sofa and declined to accept the substitution of their

thumbs, or any other makeshift, for the bottle of their desires.

Two years later was a girl, called Polly, and two years later again was

Georgie; and then, for a time, Mrs. Dicki'son being free from the cares

of a baby, fretted and worried that "'ome isn't like 'ome without a baby

in it." But when Georgie was just turned three little Miriam arrived,

and Mrs. Dicki'son was able to change her complaint, and tell all her

acquaintance that she did think Georgie was going to be the last, and

she was sure she was "just wore out."

Most of the children took after their mother. True, as I have already

said, William Thomas had given signs of not doing so; but William Thomas

had not really lived long enough for any one to speak definitely on the

subject. All the rest thrived and grew apace, and they all took after

their mother, both in looks and character, with the exception of the

second girl, "our Ada Elizabeth."

"The very moral of her father," Mrs. Dicki'son was accustomed to sigh,

as she tried in vain to trim Ada Elizabeth's hat so that the plain

little face underneath it should look as bright and fresh as the rosy

faces of her sisters. But it was a hopeless task, and Mrs. Dicki'son

had to give it up in despair and with many a long speech full of pity

for herself that she, of all people in the world, should have such a

hard trial put upon her as a child who was undeniably plain.

For the child was plain. She had been a plain, featureless baby, of

uncertain colour, inclining to drab--very much, indeed, what William

Thomas was after her. A baby who, even when newly washed, never looked

quite clean; a little girl whose pinafore never hung right, and with

tow-coloured hair which no amount of hair-oil or curl-papers could make

anything but lank and unornamental! A child with a heavy, dull face,

and a mouth that seldom relaxed into a smile though there were people

(not Mrs. Dicki'son among them, though) who did not fail to notice that

the rare smile was a very sweet one, infinitely sweeter than ever was

seen on the four pretty rosy faces of the other children.

[Illustration: A child with a heavy, dull face.]

Mrs. Dicki'son was eloquent about Ada Elizabeth's looks and temper.

"I'm sure," she cried one day to Gerty, who was pretty, and quick of

wit, and knew to a hair's-breadth how far she could go with her mother,

"it's 'ard upon me I should have such a plain-looking child as our Ada

Elizabeth. It's no use me trying to trim her hat so as to make her look

a credit to us. I'm sure it's aggravating, it is. I've trimmed your

two hats just alike, and she looks no better in hers than she does in

her old school hat, and I got two nice curly tips just alike. 'Pon my

word, it's quite thrown away on her."

"And I want another feather in mine to make it perfect, Mother,"

murmured Gerty, with insinuating suggestiveness.

Mrs. Dicki'son caught at the bait thus held out to her. "I've a good

mind to take the tip out," she said hesitatingly.

"Yes, do, Mother; our Ada Elizabeth won't care. Will you, Ada

Elizabeth?" appealingly to the child who had had the misfortune to be

born plain.

"No, I don't care," returned Ada Elizabeth, whose heart was bursting,

not with jealousy, but with a crushing sense of her own shortcomings.

"Just like her father," remarked Mrs. Dicki'son, loosening the feather

from its place with one snip of her scissors. "He never cares 'ow he

looks! ''Andsome is as 'andsome does,' is his motto; and though he's

been a good 'usband to me, and I'd be the last to go again' him, yet I

must say I do like a bit of smartness myself. But Ada Elizabeth's the

very moral of her father--as much in her ways as she is in her looks."

So gradually it got to be an established custom that Ada Elizabeth's

attire should be shorn of those little decorations with which Mrs.

Dicki'son delighted to add effect to her eldest child's prettiness; it

was felt to be quite useless to spend money over curly tips and

artificial roses to put above such a plain little face, or "waste" it,

as her mother put it, in the not very delicate way in which she tried to

excuse herself to the child when some more obvious difference than usual

between her clothes and Gerty's was contemplated.

Ada Elizabeth made no complaint. If asked her mind by the officious

Gerty, she said she did not care, and the answer was accepted as literal

truth by her mother and sister. But Ada Elizabeth did care. She was

not jealous, mind--alas! no, poor child--she was only miserable, crushed

with an ever-present consciousness of her own deficiencies and

shortcomings, with a sense that in having been born plain and in having

taken after her father she had done her mother an irreparable injury,

had offered her the deepest insult possible! She honestly felt that it

was a hard trial to her mother that she should have such a plain and

dull child. More than once she made a desperate effort to chatter after

Gerty's fashion, but somehow the Dicki'son family did not appreciate the

attempt. Gerty stared at her and sniggered, and her mother told her

with fretful promptness that she did not know what she was talking

about; and poor Ada Elizabeth withdrew into herself, as it were, and

became more reserved--"more like her father"--than ever, cherishing no

resentment against those who had so mercilessly snubbed her, but only

feeling more intensely than ever that she was unlike the rest of the

world, and that her fate was to be seen as little as possible and not

heard at all.

CHAPTER II

The time had come round for the great annual examination of the National

Schools where the young Dicki'sons received their education, and on the

great day itself the children came in at tea-time full to overflowing

with the results of their efforts. And Ada Elizabeth was full of it

too, but not to overflowing; on the contrary, she crept into the

kitchen, where her father and mother and little two-year-old

Miriam--commonly called "Mirry"--were already seated at the table, and

put her school-bag away in its place with a shamefaced air, as if she,

being an ignominious failure, could have no news to bring.

"Well," exclaimed Mrs. Dicki'son to Gerty, who threw her hat and bag

down and wriggled into her seat with her mouth already open to tell her

tale, "did you get a prize?"

"No, I didn't, Mother," returned Gerty glibly. "A nasty old crosspatch

Miss Simmonds is; she always did hate me, and I think she hates me worse

than ever now. Anyway, she didn't give me a prize--just to show her

spite, nasty thing!"

Mrs. Dicki'son always declared that her husband was a slow man; and he

looked up slowly then and fixed his dull eyes upon Gerty's flushed face.

"H'm!" he remarked, in a dry tone, and then closed his lips tight and

helped himself to another slice of bread and butter.

Gerty's flushed face grew a fine scarlet. She knew only too well what

the "h'm" and the dry tone and the tightly-closed lips meant, and made

haste to change the subject, or, at least, to turn the interest of the

conversation from herself to her sister.

"But our Ada Elizabeth's got the first prize of all," she informed them;

and in her eagerness to divert her father's slow attention from herself,

she spoke with such an air of pride in the unlooked-for result of the

examination that Ada Elizabeth cast a glance of passionate gratitude

towards her, and then visibly shrank into herself, as if, in having won

so prominent a place, she had done something to make her mother's trials

harder to bear than ever. "And there's going to be a grander treat than

we've ever had this year," Gerty went on, in her glibest tones. "And the

dean's lady, Lady Margaret, is going to give the prizes away, and all

the company is going to be at the treat, and--and----"

"Oh! what a pity!" exclaimed Mrs. Dicki'son, turning a hopeless gaze

upon poor Ada Elizabeth. "Our Ada Elizabeth 'll never show up properly,

as you would, Gerty."

"Our Ada Elizabeth's lesson-books 'll show up better than Gerty's, may

be," put in Mr. Dicki'son, in his quietest tone and with his driest

manner.

"Oh! Ada Elizabeth's not clever like Gerty," returned Mrs. Dicki'son,

utterly ignorant as she was indifferent to the fact that she was rapidly

taking all the savour out of the child's hour of triumph. "And you were

so sure of it too, Gerty."

"So was the hare of winning the race; but the tortoise won, after all,"

remarked Mr. Dicki'son sententiously.

"What _are_ you talking about, Father?" his wife demanded. "I'm sure if

tidy 'air has anything to do with it, Gerty ought to be at the top of

the tree, for, try as I will, I _can't_ make Ada Elizabeth's 'air ever

look aught like, wash it and brush it and curl it as ever I will; and as

for 'air-oil----"

Mr. Dicki'son interrupted his wife by a short laugh. "I didn't mean

that at all"--he knew by long experience that it was useless to try to

make her understand what he did mean--"but, now you speak of it, perhaps

Ada Elizabeth's 'air don't make so much show as some of the others; it's

like mine, and mine never was up to much--not but what there's scarcely

enough left to tell what sort it is."

It was quite a long speech for the unsociable and quiet Mr. Dicki'son to

come out with, and his wife passed it by without comment, only making a

fretful reiteration of Ada Elizabeth's plainness and a complaint of the

sorry figure she would cut among the great doings on the day of the

school treat and distribution of prizes.

"_Is_ our Ada Elizabeth a plain one?" said Mr. Dicki'son, with an air of

astonishment which conveyed a genuine desire for information, then

turned and scanned the child's burning face, after which he looked

closely at the faces of the other children, so little like hers, and so

nearly like that of his pretty, mindless, complaining wife. "Well, yes,

little 'un, I suppose you're not exactly pretty," he admitted

unwillingly; "you're like me, and I never was a beauty to look at. But,

there, 'handsome is as handsome does,' and you've brought home first

prize to-day, which you wouldn't have done, may be, if you'd always been

on the grin, like Gerty there. Seems to me," he went on reflectively,

"that that there first prize 'll stand by you when folks has got tired

of Gerty's grin, that's what seems to me. I don't know," he went on,

"that I set so much store by looks. I never was aught but a plain man,

but I've made you a good husband, Em'ly, and you can't deny it. You'll

mind that good-looking chap, Joe Webster, that you kept company with

before you took up with me? He chucked you up for Eliza Moriarty.

Well, I met her this morning, poor soul! with two black eyes and her

lips strapped up with plaster. H'm!" with a sniff of self-approval,

"seems to me I'd not care to change my plain looks for his handsome

ones. 'Handsome is as handsome does' is _my_ motto; and if I want aught

doing for me, it's our Ada Elizabeth I asks to do it, that's all _I_

know."

The great day of the school treat came and went. The dean's wife, Lady

Margaret Adair, gave away the prizes, as she had promised, and was so

struck with "our Ada Elizabeth's" timid and shrinking air that she kept

her for a few minutes, while she told her that she had heard a very good

account of her, and that she hoped she would go on and work harder than

ever. "For I see," said Lady Margaret, looking at a paper in her hand,

"that you are the first in your class for these subjects, and that you

have carried off the regular attendance and good-conduct prize as well.

I am sure you must be a very good little woman, and be a great favourite

with your schoolmistress."

Mrs. Dicki'son--who, as the mother of the show pupil of the day, and as

a person of much respectability in the neighbourhood, which was not

famous for that old-fashioned virtue, had been given a seat as near as

possible to the dais on which Lady Margaret and the table of prizes were

accommodated--heard the pleasant words of praise, which would have made

most mothers' hearts throb with exultant pride, with but little of such

a feeling; on the contrary, her whole mind was filled with regret that

it was not Gerty standing on the edge of the dais, instead of the

unfortunate Ada Elizabeth, who did not show off well. If only it had

been Gerty! Gerty would have answered my lady with a pretty blush and

smile, and would have dropped her courtesy at the right moment, and

would have been a credit to her mother generally.

But, alas! Gerty's glib tongue and ready smiles had not won her the

prizes which had fallen to poor little plain Ada Elizabeth's share, and

Gerty was out in the cold, so to speak, among the other scholars, while

Ada Elizabeth, in an agony of shyness and confusion, stood on the edge

of the dais, first on one foot and then on the other, conscious that her

mother's eyes were upon her and that their expression was not an

approving one, feeling, though she would hardly have been able to put it

into words, that in cutting so sorry a figure she was making her poor

mother's trials more hard to bear than ever. Poor little plain child,

she kept courtesying up and down like a mechanical doll, and saying,

"Yes, 'm," and "No, 'm," at the wrong moments, and she altogether forgot

that the fresh-coloured, buxom lady in the neat black gown and with only

a bit of blue feather to relieve her black bonnet was not a "ma'am" at

all, but a "my lady," who ought to have been addressed as such. At

last, however, the ceremony, and the games and sports, and the big tea

were all over, and Ada Elizabeth went home with her prizes to be a

heroine no longer, for she soon, very soon, in the presence of Gerty's

prettiness and Gerty's glib tongue and ready smiles, sank into the

insignificance which had been her portion aforetime. She had not much

encouragement to go on trying to be a credit to the family which she had

so hardly tried by taking after her father, for nobody seemed to

remember that she had been at the top of the tree at the great

examination, or, if they did recall it, it was generally as an example

of the schoolmistress's "awkwardness" of disposition in having passed

over the hare for the tortoise. Yet sometimes, when Gerty was extra

hard upon Ada Elizabeth's dulness, or Mrs. Dicki'son found the trial of

her life more heavy to bear than usual, her father would look up from

his dinner or his tea, as it might happen to be, and fix his slow gaze

upon his eldest daughter's vivacious countenance.

"H'm! Our Ada Elizabeth's too stupid to live, is she? Well, you're

like to know, Gerty; it was you won three first prizes last half, wasn't

it? A great credit to you, to say nought about the 'good conduct and

regular attendance.' Yes, you're like to know all about it, you are."

"Dear me, Gerty," Mrs. Dicki'son would as often as not chime in

fretfully, having just wit enough to keep on the blind side of "Father,"

"eat your tea, and let our Ada Elizabeth alone, do; it isn't pretty of

you to be always calling her for something. Our Ada Elizabeth's

plain-looking, there's no saying aught again' it, but stupid she isn't,

and never was; and, as Father says, ''andsome is as 'andsome does'; so

don't let me hear any more of it."

And all the time the poor little subject of discussion would sit

writhing upon her chair, feeling that, after all, Gerty was quite right,

and that she was not only unfortunately plain to look at, but that, in

spite of the handsome prizes laid out in state on the top of the chest

of drawers, there was little doubt that she was just too stupid to live.

CHAPTER III

It was a very mild and damp autumn that year, and the autumn was

succeeded by an equally mild winter; therefore it is not surprising that

the truth of the old saying, "A green Christmas makes a fat kirkyard,"

became sadly realized in the neighbourhood of Gardener's Lane.

For about the middle of December a dangerous low fever, with some

leaning towards typhoid, broke out in the parish, and the men being

mostly hard-drinkers, and the majority of the women idle drabs who did

not use half-a-pound of soap in a month, it flew from house to house

until half the population was down with it; ay, and, as nearly always

happens, not only the hard-drinkers and the idle drabs were those to

suffer, but the steady, respectable workmen and the good housewives came

in for more than their just share of the tribulation also. And, among

others, the Dicki'son family paid dearly for the sins and shortcomings

of their fellow-creatures, for the first to fall sick was the pretty,

complaining mother, of whom not even her detractors could say other than

that she was cleanliness itself in all her ways. And it was a very bad

case. The good parson came down with offers of help, and sent in a

couple of nurses, whom he paid out of his own pocket--though, if he had

but known it, he would have done much more wisely to have spent the same

amount of money on one with more knowledge of her business and less

power of speech--and the doctor and his partner came and went with grave

and anxious faces, which did not say too much for the sick woman's

chance of recovery.

Mr. Dicki'son stayed at home from his work for a whole week, and spent

his time about equally between anxiously watching his wife's

fever-flushed face and sitting with his children, trying to keep them

quiet--no easy task, let me tell you, in a house where every movement

could be heard in every corner; and, as the schools were promptly

closed, for fear of spreading the epidemic, the children were on hand

during the whole day, and, poor little things, were as sorely tried by

the silence they were compelled to keep as they tried the quiet, dull

man whose heart was full almost to bursting.