"That will not be running in a straight road," and she reluctantly
obeyed her sister's call, and picked flowers till the bell rang for the
school-room dinner.
She was not free from lessons till four o'clock. Then, without saying a
word to any one, she put on her hat and ran out of the house and down
the long drive as fast as her legs could carry her. She knew one old
widow by sight, but she had never been inside her cottage. She was
rather shunned by her neighbours, as she was a very dirty, thriftless
woman, and earned her living by collecting rags and bones.
Jill knocked at her door eagerly and breathlessly.
The old woman poked her head out and looked at her crossly.
"What do 'ee want?"
"I've come to visit you."
"Don't want no visits from plaguey children!"
The door was banged in her face.
Poor Jill retired discomfited. Then she thought of another widow who
had lately lost her husband, a very respectable farmer. She lived at
a farm some distance off, but distance was no detriment to Jill's purpose.
Away she went; across fields and down lanes; getting more tired and
heated every step she took.
She found the young woman at her wash-tub.
"May I come in and visit you?" asked Jill meekly.
"Come in and welcome, miss. I think you be one of the little ladies
belongin' to Miss Baron?"
"Yes, I am," said Jill, seating herself on a low stool with a sigh of
relief. "I'm glad you will let me come in. Old Mrs. Jonas wouldn't!"
"That old cat! Why, miss! you be never tryin' to visit her?"
"I'm visiting all the widows I can find to-day," said Jill solemnly. "The
Bible tells me to."
Young Mrs. Drake put her apron to her eyes.
"Aye, dearie me! My poor, dear husban'! To think that I be called
a widder along wi' that old good-for-nothin' Mrs. Jonas! Oh, 'tis a
cruel, wicked world, and hard on me that has allays done me duty an'
attended church reg'lar!"
"Don't cry, please," said Jill, only dimly understanding the drift of
her words. "You can't help being a widow, you know. That's why I've come
to see you. And I've come to see your children too, because it says the
'fatherless!'----"
But at this Mrs. Drake began to sob afresh, and so violently that Jill
felt quite alarmed.
"So they be! 'Fatherless.' An' only last Wednesday three weeks he were a
dandlin' of 'em on his knee. Oh, 'tis hard, 'tis cruel hard on a poor,
single woman!"
A hard-featured woman put her head in at the door.
"Why, Polly, what be 'ee makin' such a moan over?"
Then seeing Jill, she stepped forward.
Mrs. Drake sobbed the louder.
"Little miss have been mindin' me that I'm a lone widder, and my chillen
fatherless. So they be, the poor critturs, but 'tis hard to have it
thrown up agen me! Ah, my poor dear husban'! Oh, Jim, Jim! why did 'ee
leave me?"
She began to beat her hands to and fro, and seemed to be hysterically
inclined.
"Run away," said the hard-featured woman. "You won't do no good here,
missy. Poor soul! she has been well-nigh distracted, and I were hopin'
she were gettin' over the worst of it, and now she be so bad as ever!"
Jill crept out of the house feeling her visit had been a failure.
As she gained the high-road again, she met Sir Henry Talbot, whom Bumps
still called the "keeper."
He was very good to the children, and stopped directly he saw her.
"Hulloo!" he said. "Are you having another truant day? Are you all alone?"
"I'm not truanting," said Jill. "I've been looking for widows. Do you
know any, Sir Henry?"
He laughed.
"I do. Now, what the dickens do you want widows for? Tell me, and I'll
help you."
Jill hesitated.
"You won't laugh at me?"
"On my honour, no."
"I'm trying to be double-good to-day, so I'm visiting them, like the
Bible says we must."
Sir Henry did not laugh. He only stood and looked at her.
"And what do you say to them when you see them?"
"That's the difficult part," said Jill. "I don't quite know what to
say. I've been to one widow, and she wouldn't let me in, and I've been
to another, and made her cry."
"And now you're looking for a third. Well, I will help you. Do you see
that big house behind the trees over there? A widow lives there, and
her name is Mrs. Beresford. Go and see her, and make her cry if you can."
"But I don't want to make them cry,' said Jill. 'Will she like to see me?"
"I should think she would. I should, if I were a widow."
"Has she any children? I want to visit some fatherless."
"Happy thought! Come home and have some tea with me. I'm a fatherless
creature. My father died when I was an infant."
"I think," said Jill slowly, "the Bible means poor widows and fatherless.
You aren't in affliction, are you?"
"No," said Sir Henry. "I can hardly say I am."
"Then thank you very much, but I shall have to look for some really
poor people."
And nothing that he could say would induce her to accompany him home.
She plodded back to the village, but before she reached it, she came
upon a little party of tramps who had drawn up their pony and cart by
the roadside, and were eating their evening meal.
They were not prepossessing in appearance. Two women, both of whom
seemed careworn and down-trodden, four children, ragged and dirty,
and a sullen, bad-tempered looking man. Jill looked at them with
interest. One of the women had a rusty piece of crape on her bonnet.
It was that which prompted Jill to speak.
"Are you a widow?" she asked.
The woman stared at her, but the elder one of the two gave her a nudge,
then answered for her.
"Yes, little lady, she be, indeed; lost her por husban' a few weeks ago,
an' leaves 'er with three chillen under four year. 'Ave you a copper,
miss, to give 'er? for she be on her way to the 'ouse."
"I'm afraid I haven't any money," said Jill, "but I'll sit down and talk
to her. It's what I came out to do--to visit widows."
The man eyed Jill up and down in a way that she did not much like, but
she was a fearless child, and was so full of the part she meant to play
that she did not think of anything else.
"I suppose you are in affliction," she said, gazing sympathetically
into the woman's face. "I'm so sorry for you. Do tell me which are your
little children."
The woman looked at Jill with dull, curious eyes. She indicated her
little ones by a backward movement of her thumb.
"And what house are you going to?" asked Jill.
"There be only one 'ouse for the likes o' me," the woman responded
bitterly; then she turned her head to watch the approach of a carriage.
Jill enticed one of the small children to come to her. She heard a
carriage pass, but did not look up, then she was startled by her name
being called, and sprang to her feet.
Mona was calling her, for it was she and Miss Webb who were driving by.
Mona's disgust was great at seeing a party of the lowest class of tramps
sitting by the roadside, and her little sister in the midst of them. She
spoke very sharply--
"Come here at once, Jill! What do you mean by disgracing yourself and
us so?"
Jill turned to the woman politely.
"I'm sorry I have to go," she said. "Good-bye."
She insisted on shaking hands, then came up to the carriage-door,
looking a little defiant.
"Get in at once, and we will drive home. How is it, Miss Webb, that even
with this immaculate Miss Falkner these children are for ever getting
into scrapes?"
Jill climbed into the carriage, feeling very uncomfortable under her
sister's scrutiny. She was conscious that she was very heated and untidy;
Mona's fresh daintiness made her feel her own deficiency in neatness.
"Give me an explanation of this at once, you naughty child," said Mona
peremptorily.
Jill's eyes flashed.
"I'm not naughty," she said indignantly; "I've--I've been visiting
widows."
Miss Webb scented amusement. She sat up straight, and tapped Jill's knee
with her pince-nez.
"That's very interesting," she said. "Of course, visiting widows is not
a sin. But who told you to do it? And why did you pick out a family of
tramps to work off your energy upon?"
Jill shut her mouth firmly. She keenly resented Miss Webb's tone of
ridicule, and determined to say no more.
Mona gave her a long lecture upon the dangers to which she had exposed
herself in making friends with tramps, and when they reached home she was
delivered over to her governess with a sharp injunction to punish her for
running away, and keep her in the school-room for the rest of the evening.
"So that's what I get for trying to be double good!" said poor Jill when
she was in bed that night. "I never will try it again!"
"Perhaps," said Bumps with wisdom beyond her years, "it wasn't quite
the right way to be it!"
X