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SUE
A LITTLE HEROINE
by
L. T. MEADE
Author of
"A Girl from America," "The Princess of the Revels,"
"Polly, a New-Fashioned Girl," "A Sweet Girl Graduate," etc.
New York
The New York Book Company
1910
BIOGRAPHY AND BIBLIOGRAPHY
L. T. Meade (Mrs. Elizabeth Thomasina Smith), English novelist, was born
at Bandon, County Cork, Ireland, 1854, the daughter of Rev. R. T. Meade,
Rector of Novohal, County Cork, and married Toulmin Smith in 1879. She
wrote her first book, _Lettie's Last Home_, at the age of seventeen and
since then has been an unusually prolific writer, her stories attaining
wide popularity on both sides of the Atlantic.
She worked in the British Museum, living in Bishopsgate Without, making
special studies of East London life which she incorporated in her
stories. She edited _Atlanta_ for six years. Her pictures of girls,
especially in the influence they exert on their elders, are drawn with
intuitive fidelity; pathos, love, and humor, as in _Daddy's Girl_,
flowing easily from her pen. She has traveled extensively, being devoted
to motoring and other outdoor sports.
Among more than fifty novels she has written, dealing largely with
questions of home life, are: _David's Little Lad_; _Great St.
Benedict's_; _A Knight of To-day_ (1877); _Miss Toosey's Mission_;
_Bel-Marjory_ (1878); _Laddie; Outcast Robbin, or, Your Brother and
Mine_; _A Cry from the Great City_; _White Lillie and Other Tales_;
_Scamp and I_; _The Floating Light of Ringfinnan_; _Dot and Her
Treasures_; _The Children's Kingdom: the Story of Great Endeavor_; _The
Water Gipsies_; _A Dweller in Tents_; _Andrew Harvey's Wife_; _Mou-setse:
A Negro Hero_ (1880); _Mother Herring's Chickens_ (1881); _A London
Baby: the Story of King Roy_ (1883); _Hermie's Rose-Buds and Other
Stories_; _How it all Came Round_; _Two Sisters_ (1884); _Autocrat of
the Nursery_; _Tip Cat_; _Scarlet Anemones_; _The Band of Three_; _A
Little Silver Trumpet_; _Our Little Ann_; _The Angel of Love_ (1885); _A
World of Girls_ (1886); _Beforehand_; _Daddy's Boy_; _The O'Donnells of
Inchfawn_; _The Palace Beautiful_; _Sweet Nancy_ (1887); _Deb and the
Duchess_ (1888); _Nobody's Neighbors_; _Pen_ (1888); _A Girl from
America_ (1907).
CONTENTS
I. BIG BEN'S VOICE. 1
II. A SERVANT OF GOD. 3
III. GOOD SECURITY. 7
IV. SOLITARY HOURS. 9
V. EAGER WORDS. 10
VI. DIFFERENT SORT OF WORK. 12
VII. SHOPPING. 21
VIII. COMPARISONS. 26
IX. A TRIP INTO THE COUNTRY. 31
X. THE RETURN TO LONDON. 35
XI. A NEW DEPARTURE. 44
XII. LEFT ALONE. 48
XIII. PETER HARRIS. 60
XIV. THE SEARCH. 66
XV. CONCENTRATION OF PURPOSE. 69
XVI. PICKLES. 74
XVII. CINDERELLA. 78
XVIII. THE METROPOLITAN FIRE BRIGADE. 79
XIX. A SAINTLY LADY. 83
XX. CAUGHT AGAIN. 87
XXI. SAFE HOME AT LAST. 94
XXII. NEWS OF SUE. 105
XXIII. AMATEUR DETECTIVE. 109
XXIV. MOTHER AND SON. 112
XXV. ABOUT RONALD. 113
XXVI. TWO CUPS OF COFFEE. 124
XXVII. DELAYED TRIAL. 127
XXVIII. CINDERELLA WOULD SHIELD THE REAL THIEF. 130
XXIX. A LITTLE HEROINE. 132
XXX. WHAT WAS HARRIS TO HER? 134
XXXI. A STERN RESOLVE. 136
XXXII. AN UNEXPECTED ACCIDENT. 137
XXXIII. A POINTED QUESTION. 138
XXXIV. PICKLES TO THE FORE AGAIN. 141
XXXV. THE WINGS ARE GROWING. 142
XXXVI. A CRISIS. 143
XXXVII. THE HAPPY GATHERING. 151
SUE: A LITTLE HEROINE.
CHAPTER I.
BIG BEN'S VOICE.
Sue made a great effort to push her way to the front of the crowd. The
street preacher was talking, and she did not wish to lose a word. She
was a small, badly made girl, with a freckled face and hair inclined to
red, but her eyes were wonderfully blue and intelligent. She pushed and
pressed forward into the thick of the crowd. She felt a hand on her
shoulder, and looking up, saw a very rough man gazing at her.
"Be that you, Peter Harris?" said Sue. "An' why didn't yer bring Connie
along?"
"Hush!" said some people in the crowd.
The preacher raised his voice a little higher:
"'Tell His disciples and Peter that He goeth before you into Galilee.'"
Peter Harris, the rough man, trembled slightly. Sue found herself
leaning against him. She knew quite well that his breath was coming
fast.
"His disciples and Peter," she said to herself.
The street preacher had a magnificent voice. It seemed to roll above the
heads of the listening crowd, or to sink to a penetrating whisper which
found its echo in their hearts. The deep, wonderful eyes of the man had
a power of making people look at him. Sue gazed with all her might and
main.
"Father John be a good un," she said to herself. "He be the best man in
all the world."
After the discourse--which was very brief and full of stories, and just
the sort which those rough people could not help listening to--a hymn
was sung, and then the crowd dispersed.
Sue was amongst them. She was in a great hurry. She forgot all about
John Atkins, the little street preacher to whom she had been listening.
She soon found herself in a street which was gaily lighted; there was a
gin-palace at one end, another in the middle, and another at the farther
end. This was Saturday night: Father John was fond of holding vigorous
discourses on Saturday nights. Sue stopped to make her purchases. She
was well-known in the neighborhood, and as she stepped in and out of one
shop and then of another, she was the subject of a rough jest or a
pleasant laugh, just as the mood of the person she addressed prompted
one or other. She spent a few pence out of her meager purse, her
purchases were put into a little basket, and she found her way home. The
season was winter. She turned into a street back of Westminster; it went
by the name of Adam Street. It was very long and rambling, with broken
pavements, uneven roadways, and very tall, narrow, and dirty houses.
In a certain room on the fourth floor of one of the poorest of these
houses lay a boy of between ten and eleven years of age. He was quite
alone in the room, but that fact did not at all insure his being quiet.
All kinds of sounds came to him--sounds from the street, sounds from
below stairs, sounds from overhead. There were shrieking voices and ugly
laughter, and now and then there were shrill screams. The child was
accustomed to these things, however, and it is doubtful whether he heard
them.
He was a sad-looking little fellow, with that deadly white complexion
which children who never go into the fresh air possess. His face,
however, was neither discontented nor unhappy. He lay very still, with
patient eyes, quite touching in their absolute submission. Had any one
looked hard at little Giles they would have noticed something else on
his face--it was a listening look. The sounds all around did not
discompose him, for his eyes showed that he was waiting for something.
It came. Over and above the discord a Voice filled the air. Nine times
it repeated itself, slowly, solemnly, with deep vibrations. It was "Big
Ben" proclaiming the hour. The boy had heard the chimes which preceded
the hour; they were beautiful, of course, but it was the voice of Big
Ben himself that fascinated him.
"Ain't he a real beauty to-night?" thought the child. "How I wishes as
Sue 'ud hear him talk like that! Sometimes he's more weakly in his
throat, poor fellow! but to-night he's in grand voice."
The discord, which for one brief moment was interrupted for the child by
the beautiful, harmonious notes, continued in more deafening fashion
than ever. Children cried; women scolded; men cursed and swore. In the
midst of the din the room door was opened and a girl entered.
"Sue!" cried Giles.
"Yes," answered Sue, putting down her basket as she spoke. "I'm a bit
late; there wor a crowd in the street, and I went to hear him. He wor
grand."
"Oh, worn't he?" said Giles. "I never did know him to be in such
beautiful voice."
Sue came up and stared at the small boy. Her good-natured but somewhat
common type of face was a great contrast to his.
"Whatever are you talking about?" she said. "You didn't hear him; you
can't move, poor Giles!"
"But I did hear him," replied the boy. "I feared as I'd get off to
sleep, but I didn't. I never did hear Big Ben in such voice--he gave out
his text as clear as could be."
"Lor', Giles!" exclaimed Sue, "I didn't mean that stupid clock; I means
Father John. I squeezed up as close as possible to him, and I never
missed a word as fell from his lips. Peter Harris were there too. I
wonder how he felt. Bad, I 'spect, when he remembers the way he treated
poor Connie. And oh, Giles! what do yer think? The preacher spoke to him
jest as clear as clear could be, and he called him by his name--Peter.
'Tell His disciples and Peter,' Father John cried, and I could feel
Peter Harris jump ahind me."
"Wor that his text, Sue?"
"Yes, all about Peter. It wor wonnerful."
"Well, my text were, 'No more pain,'" said the boy. "I ache bad nearly
always, but Big Ben said, 'No more pain,' as plain as he could speak,
poor old fellow! It was nine times he said it. It were werry
comforting."
Sue made no reply. She was accustomed to that sort of remark from Giles.
She busied herself putting the kettle on the fire to boil, and then
cleaned a little frying-pan which by-and-by was to toast a herring for
Giles's supper and her own.
"Look what I brought yer," she said to the boy. "It were turning a bit,
Tom Watkins said, and he gave it me for a ha'penny, but I guess frying
and a good dash of salt 'ull make it taste fine. When the kettle boils
I'll pour out your tea; you must want it werry bad."
"Maybe I do and maybe I don't," answered Giles. "It's 'No more pain' I'm
thinking of. Sue, did you never consider that maybe ef we're good and
patient Lord Christ 'ull take us to 'eaven any day?"
"No," answered Sue; "I'm too busy." She stood for a minute reflecting.
"And I don't want to go to 'eaven yet," she continued; "I want to stay
to look after you."
Giles smiled. "It's beautiful in 'eaven," he said. "I'd like to go, but
I wouldn't like to leave you, Sue."
"Take your tea now, there's a good fellow," answered Sue, who was
nothing if not matter-of-fact. "Aye, dear!" she continued as she poured
it out and then waited for Giles to raise the cup to his lips, "Peter
Harris do look bad. I guess he's sorry he was so rough on Connie. But
now let's finish our supper, and I'll prepare yer for bed, Giles, for
I'm desp'rate tired."