How long 'Lisbeth might have sat under the shelf, and under the curtain,
earning pence and pulling wires, and forgetting that her mother was
looking for her, had she not fallen into a doze, I cannot say. She might
have been there till now; she might have been there ten years to come;
but she did doze and she did wake up; she had swept the crossing hard
enough the day before to be tired, and she was; she was tired, and it
was coming night, and she did doze, and she did wake up, and she did
wake up with a start which broke the wire, and twisted the head of the
wax figure clear out of place, so that it looked in the shop instead of
out of it, and made a confusion inside, and outside, and on all sides,
seldom made by any wax figure in any wig since the beginning of time.
'Lisbeth told the pleasant little man that she could not help it, and he
told her that he could not help it, and 'Lisbeth went home--to be sure
seven pence richer, but a good deal flustered and disappointed, and
with the determination never again, while she lived and breathed, to
have anything to do with, or even so much as to look at any wax figures
or any wigs.
'Lisbeth's mother told her that had she waited, and asked her advice,
instead of leaving her to such distress in looking for her, she would
have told her, in the beginning, to have nothing to do in the matter of
wigs, with which she was not acquainted, and reproved her for staying
away till the candle was lighted on the shelf; and 'Lisbeth, if she was
no more unhappy than she had been when she stood by the mile-stone, was
certainly no more happy.
To be sure she was richer. Though she had broken the wire, the pleasant
little man had given her seven pence, though she had gained nothing
more; but the bother, now, was to know what to do with it. Had it been
seven thousand pence she might, perhaps, have known better what to do
with it; but seven pence were of so much more consequence; being a
little it had to go a great way. There was no trifling to be done about
it. She knew the importance of it. She was awake half the night
considering how to spend it, and the other half she was dreaming of
losing and finding it, until by morning her head was almost split in
two.
Had 'Lisbeth run home and given the seven pence to her mother to buy a
nice platted loaf or a piece of bacon, her head had not almost split in
two; but 'Lisbeth was always making trouble for herself. Though the
thoughts and worry about the pence almost split her head, she was not in
a condition in the morning to know what to do with the pence. She had
her own pence and her own plan, had she had less of her own she would
have been more comfortable. But 'Lisbeth was 'Lisbeth, and if her mother
sighed about it, she could not see any way of making her anybody else.
When breakfast was over that morning the mother went to carry some
sewing home, and while she was gone 'Lisbeth thought she would go out
too. This was very wrong; very wrong indeed, but 'Lisbeth did not wait
to think about that. She took a basket when she went out, and she took
her seven pence. She felt herself very important indeed, though really
she was nobody but a disobedient little girl. She came to a cake shop
where all kinds of cakes were to be bought.
"I'm going to keep store," said 'Lisbeth to the shopman, "and I want
some wonderful nice cakes."
"You do, do you?" said the shopman; "let me see your money."
"Seven pence," said 'Lisbeth, displaying it on the counter; "I want to
spend it all."
"You do, do you? Where's your store?"
"In my basket," said 'Lisbeth, but there was nothing in her basket but a
bit of brown paper.
"What would you like to buy with your seven pence?" asked the shopman.
"A great many things," said 'Lisbeth; "but I think I will buy some of
these cakes."
"Humph," said the shopman; "pick out nine of 'm."
'Lisbeth picked them out. They were cakes of different shapes; quite a
stock for seven pence, and no mistake.
'Lisbeth arranged the cakes along the bottom of the basket in two rows;
four in one row and five in the other. Then she started off. She never
was more pleased in her life. She was more sure than ever that she was
somebody, that she was somebody important. She expected that every one
of those cakes would be gone before she had time to look around. She was
surprised to find that instead of everybody stopping to look at them,
nobody stopped to look at them at all. She was surprised to find
everybody going by as though there was a pot of gold, at the other end
of the street, which they were hurrying on to get, while they did not so
much as glance at her, or at the cakes in her basket. This would never
do. She would walk up and ask them to buy. So she walked up and asked
them, but they did not hear her, or did not want to hear her, and did
not stop walking as fast as they could, except one lady with two little
girls who bought two for two pence.
'Lisbeth thought these were nice little girls; she wished afterward she
had asked them to buy four for four pence. Nobody else bought any. She
walked and walked, and stood; and the mother came home and wondered
where she was, and looked out of the window, and out of the door, and
listened on the stairs, but could make nothing of it at all; and the
fact was, that when the mother was listening on the stairs, and looking
out of the doors, and sighing to herself about ever having come to
London, 'Lisbeth was sound asleep, at the corner of the street, seated
on the sidewalk with her back against the wall, and her basket standing
beside her, and the mother might as well have listened for her feet as
for the buzzing of a china bumble-bee with glass legs.
[Illustration]