Miss Starke was one of those ladies who pass their lives in the direst
of all civil strife--war with their servants. She looked upon the
members of that class as the unrelenting and sleepless enemies of the
unfortunate householders condemned to employ them. She thought they ate
and drank to their villainous utmost, in order to ruin their
benefactors--that they lived in one constant conspiracy with one another
and the tradesmen, the object of which was to cheat and pilfer. Miss
Starke was a miserable woman. As she had no relations or friends who
cared enough for her to share her solitary struggle against her domestic
foes; and her income, though easy, was an annuity that died with
herself, thereby reducing various nephews, nieces, or cousins, to the
strict bounds of a natural affection--that did not exist; and as she
felt the want of some friendly face amidst this world of distrust and
hate, so she had tried the resource of venal companions. But the venal
companions had never staid long--either they disliked Miss Starke, or
Miss Starke disliked them. Therefore the poor woman had resolved upon
bringing up some little girl whose heart, as she said to herself, would
be fresh and uncorrupted, and from whom she might expect gratitude. She
had been contented, on the whole, with Helen, and had meant to keep that
child in her house as long as she (Miss Starke) remained upon the
earth--perhaps some thirty years longer; and then, having carefully
secluded her from marriage, and other friendship, to leave her nothing
but the regret of having lost so kind a benefactress. Agreeably with
this notion, and in order to secure the affections of the child, Miss
Starke had relaxed the frigid austerity natural to her manner and mode
of thought, and been kind to Helen in an iron way. She had neither
slapped nor pinched her, neither had she starved. She had allowed her
to see Leonard, according to the agreement made with Dr. Morgan, and had
laid out tenpence on cakes, besides contributing fruit from her garden
for the first interview--a hospitality she did not think fit to renew on
subsequent occasions. In return for this, she conceived she had
purchased the right to Helen bodily and spiritually, and nothing could
exceed her indignation when she rose one morning and found the child had
gone. As it never had occurred to her to ask Leonard's address, though
she suspected Helen had gone to him, she was at a loss what to do, and
remained for twenty-four hours in a state of inane depression. But then
she began to miss the child so much that her energies woke, and she
persuaded herself that she was actuated by the purest benevolence in
trying to reclaim this poor creature from the world, into which Helen
had thus rashly plunged.
Accordingly, she put an advertisement into the _Times_, to the
following effect, liberally imitated from one by which, in former years,
she had recovered a favorite Blenheim:
TWO GUINEAS REWARD.
Strayed, from Ivy Cottage, Highgate, a Little Girl, answers to the
name of Helen; with blue eyes and brown hair; white muslin frock,
and straw hat with blue ribbons. Whoever will bring the same to Ivy
Cottage, shall receive the above Reward.
_N.B._--Nothing more will be offered.
Now, it so happened that Mrs. Smedley had put an advertisement in the
_Times_ on her own account relative to a niece of hers who was coming
from the country, and for whom she desired to find a situation. So,
contrary to her usual habit, she sent for the newspaper, and, close by
her own advertisement, she saw Miss Starke's.
It was impossible that she could mistake the description of Helen; and,
as this advertisement caught her eye the very day after the whole house
had been disturbed and scandalized by Burley's noisy visit, and on which
she had resolved to get rid of a lodger who received such visitors, the
good-hearted woman was delighted to think that she could restore Helen
to some safe home. While thus thinking, Helen herself entered the
kitchen where Mrs. Smedley sate, and the landlady had the imprudence to
point out the advertisement, and talk, as she called it, "seriously" to
the little girl.
Helen in vain and with tears entreated her to take no step in reply to
the advertisement. Mrs. Smedley felt it was an affair of duty, and was
obdurate, and shortly afterward put on her bonnet and left the house.
Helen conjectured that she was on her way to Miss Starke's, and her
whole soul was bent on flight. Leonard had gone to the office of the
_Beehive_ with his MSS.; but she packed up all their joint effects, and,
just as she had done so, he returned. She communicated the news of the
advertisement, and said she should be so miserable if compelled to go
back to Miss Starke's, and implored him so pathetically to save her from
such sorrow that he at once assented to her proposal of flight. Luckily,
little was owing to the landlady--that little was left with the
maid-servant; and, profiting by Mrs. Smedley's absence, they escaped
without scene or conflict. Their effects were taken by Leonard to a
stand of hackney vehicles, and then left at a coach-office, while they
went in search of lodgings. It was wise to choose an entirely new and
remote district; and before night they were settled in an attic in
Lambeth.