HIGHLY RESPECTABLE.
As old Oliver was stooping over his desk on the counter, and bringing his
dim eyes as close as he could to the letter he was writing, his shop-door
was darkened by the unexpected entrance of his sister Charlotte herself.
She was dressed with her usual extreme neatness, bordering upon
gentility, and she carried upon her arm a small fancy reticule, which
contained some fresh eggs, and a few russet apples, brought up expressly
from the country. Oliver welcomed her with more than ordinary pleasure,
and led her at once into his room behind. Charlotte's quick eyes detected
in an instant the traces of a child's dwelling there; and before Oliver
could utter a word, she picked up a little frock, and was holding it out
at arm's length, with an air of utter surprise and misgiving.
"Brother James!" she exclaimed, and her questioning voice, with its tone
of amazement, rang very clearly into his ears.
"It's my little Dolly's," he answered, in haste; "poor Susan's little
girl, who's gone out with her husband, young Raleigh, to India, because
he's 'listed, and left her little girl with me, her grandfather. She came
on the very last day you were here."
"Well, to be sure!" cried his sister, sinking down on a chair, but still
keeping the torn little frock in her hand.
"I've had two letters from poor Susan," he continued, in a tremulous
voice, "and I'll read them to you. The child's such a precious treasure
to me, Charlotte--such a little love, a hundred times better than any
gold; and now you're come to mend up her clothes a bit, and see what she
wants for me, there's nothing else that I desire. I was writing about her
to you when you came in."
"I thought you'd gone and picked up a lost child out of the streets,"
said Charlotte, with a sigh of relief.
"No, no; she's my own," he answered. "You hearken while I read poor
Susan's letters, and then you'll understand all about it. I couldn't give
her up for a hundred gold guineas--not for a deal more than that."
He knew Susan's letters off by heart, and did not need his spectacles,
nor a good light to read them by. Charlotte listened with emphatic nods,
and many exclamations of astonishment.
"That's very pretty of Susan," she remarked, "saying as Aunt Charlotte'll
do her sewing, and see to her manners. Ay, that I will! for who should
know manners better than me, who used to work for the Staniers, and dine
at the housekeeper's table, with the butler and all the head servants? to
be sure I'll take care that she does not grow up ungenteel. Where is the
dear child, brother James?"
"She's gone out for a walk this fine morning," he answered.
"Not alone?" cried Charlotte. "Who's gone out with her? A child under
five years old could never go out all alone in London: at least I should
think not. She might get run over and killed a score of times."
"Oh! there's a person with her I've every confidence in," replied Oliver.
"What sort of person; man or woman; male or female?" inquired Charlotte.
"A boy," he answered, in some confusion.
"A boy!" repeated his sister, as if he had said a monster. "What boy?"
"His name's Tony," he replied.
"But where does he come from? Is he respectable?" she pursued, fixing
him with her glittering eyes in a manner which did not tend to restore
his composure.
"I don't know, sister," he said in a feeble tone.
"Don't know, brother James!" she exclaimed. "Don't you know where
he lives?"
"He lives here," stammered old Oliver; "at least he sleeps here under the
counter; but he finds his own food about the streets."
Charlotte's consternation was past all powers of speech. Here was her
brother, a respectable man, who had seen better days, and whose sister
had been a dressmaker in good families, harbouring in his own house a
common boy off the streets, who, no doubt, was a thief and pickpocket,
with all sorts of low ways and bad language. At the same time there was
poor Susan's little girl dwelling under the same roof; the child whose
pretty manners she was to attend to, living in constant companionship
with a vulgar and vicious boy! What she might have said upon recovering
her speech, neither she nor Oliver ever knew; for at this crisis Tony
himself appeared, carrying Dolly and his new broom in his arms, and
looking very haggard and tattered himself, his bare feet black with mud,
and his bare head in a hopeless condition of confusion, and tangle.
"We've bought a geat big boom, gan-pa," shouted Dolly, as she came
through the shop, and before she perceived the presence of a stranger;
"and Tony and Dolly made a great big crossing, and dot ever so much
money--"
She was suddenly silent as soon as her eye fell upon the stranger; but
Aunt Charlotte had heard enough. She rose with great dignity from her
chair, and was about to address herself vehemently to Tony, when old
Oliver interrupted her.
"Charlotte," he said, "the boy's a good boy, and he's a help to me. I
couldn't send him away. He's one of the Lord's poor little ones as are
scattered up and down in this great city, without father or mother, and I
must do all I can for him. It isn't much; it's only a bed under the
counter, and a crust now and then, and he more than pays for it. You
musn't come betwixt me and Tony."
Old Oliver spoke so emphatically, that his sister was impressed and
silenced for a minute. She took the little girl away from Tony, and
glared at him with a sternness which made him feel very uncomfortable;
but her eye softened a little, and her face grew less harsh.
"You can't read or write?" she said, in a sharp voice.
"No," he answered.
"And you've not got any manners, or boots, or a cap on your head. You are
ragged and ignorant, and not fit to live with this little girl," she
continued, with energy. "If this little girl's mother saw her going about
with a boy in bare feet and a bare head, it 'ud break her heart I know.
So if you wish to stay here with my brother, Mr. Oliver, and this little
girl, Miss Dorothy Raleigh, as I suppose her name is, you must get all
these things. You must begin to learn to read and write, and talk
properly. I shall come here again in a month's time--I shall come every
month now--and if you haven't got some shoes for your feet, and a cap for
your head, before I see you again, I shall just take the little girl away
down into the country, where I live, and you'll never see her again. Do
you understand?"
"Yes," answered Tony, nodding his head.
"Then you may take yourself away now," said the sharp old woman, "I don't
want to be too hard upon you; but I've got this little girl to look after
for her mother, and you must do as I say, or I shall carry her right off
to be out of your way. Take your broom and go; and never you think of
such a thing as taking this little girl to sweep a crossing again. I
never heard of such a thing. There, go!"
Tony slunk away sadly, with a sudden down-heartedness. He returned so
joyous and triumphant, in spite of his weariness, that this unexpected
and unpleasant greeting had been a very severe shock to him. With his
broom over his shoulder, and with his listless, slouching steps, he
sauntered slowly back to his crossing; but he had no heart for it now.