ADOPTED.
Mrs. Rushton returned the next day with a basket of ripe peaches and a
large bouquet of lovely flowers such as Hetty had never seen before. The
yellow lilies might stand now in peace among their tall flag leaves
without fearing to have their heads picked off, for Hetty had got
something newer and more delightful to admire than they. Odorous golden
roses and pearl-white gardenias scented and beautified the poor little
room where Hetty lay. Where had they come from, she wondered, and who
was the pretty lady who sat by her side and kept putting nice-smelling
things to her nose? At first she was very shy and only looked at her
with half-closed eyes, but after some time she took courage and spoke to
her.
"What kind lady are you?" asked Hetty boldly.
"I am a good fairy," said Mrs. Rushton, "and when you are well I am
going to carry you off to see my house."
"Hetty has got a house," said the little girl complacently. "Have you
got a house too?"
"A splendid large house, Hetty," said Mrs. Kane. "_You_ never saw such a
house."
"Is it bigger than the post-office?" said Hetty doubtingly.
"Bigger far."
"Bigger than the forge?"
"Don't be foolish, child, and stop your biggers," said Mrs. Kane; "Mrs.
Rushton's house is the size of the church and more."
Hetty winked with astonishment, and she lay silent for some time, till
at last she said:
"And do you sit in the pulpit?"
Mrs. Rushton laughed more than she was accustomed to laugh at Lady
Harriet Beaton's comic stories. This child's prattle was amusing to her.
"And do you have grave-stones growing round your door?" persisted Hetty.
"There, ma'am!" cried Mrs. Kane, "she'll worry you with questions if you
give her a bit of encouragement. She'll think of things that'll put you
wild for an answer, so she will. John and I give her up."
Mrs. Rushton was not at all inclined to give her up, however, for she
kept coming day after day to visit the little patient. Hetty became fond
of her pleasant visitor, and watched eagerly for her arrival in the
long afternoons when the flies buzzed so noisily in the small cottage
window-panes, and the child found it hard to lie still and hear the
voices of the village children shouting and laughing at their play in
the distance. As soon as Mrs. Rushton's bright eyes were seen in the
doorway, and her gay dress fluttering across the threshold, Hetty would
stretch out her one little hand in welcome to the delightful visitor,
and laugh to see all the pretty presents that were quickly strewn around
her on the bed. After spending an afternoon with the child, Mrs. Rushton
often went on to Wavertree Hall and finished the evening there with her
brother's family. Mr. and Mrs. Enderby were greatly astonished to find
how completely their lively sister had interested herself in the village
foundling.
"Take care you do not spoil her," said Mr. Enderby.
Mrs. Rushton shrugged her shoulders.
"I can never please you," she said. "One would suppose I had found a
harmless amusement this time at least, and yet you do not approve."
"I do approve," said her brother, "up to a certain point. I only warn
you not to go too far and make the child unhappy by over-petting her. In
a few weeks hence you will have forgotten her existence, and then the
little thing will be disappointed."
"But I have no intention of forgetting her in a few weeks," said Mrs.
Rushton indignantly.
"No; you have no intention--" said Mr. Enderby.
"You certainly are a most unsympathetic person," said Mrs. Rushton; and
she went away feeling herself much ill-used, and firmly believing
herself to be the only kind-hearted member of her family.
"After all, William," said Mrs. Enderby to her husband, "you ought not
to be too hard upon Amy, for you see she has given up talking of going
abroad with Lady Harriet."
"True; I have noticed that. Yet I fear she will not relinquish one folly
without falling into another."
"Her present whim is at all events an amiable one," said Mrs. Enderby
gently. "Let us hope no harm may come of it.'
"I should think it all most natural and right if any other woman than
Amy were in question," said Mr. Enderby; "but one never knows to what
extravagant lengths she will go."
The warnings of her brother had the effect of making Mrs. Rushton still
more eager in her attendance on the child, and a few days after she had
been "lectured" by him, as she put it to herself, she astonished good
Mrs. Kane by saying:
"I think she is quite fit to be moved now, Mrs. Kane, and the doctor
says so. I am going to take her home with me for a week for change of
air."
"Laws, ma'am, you never mean it!"
"But I do mean it. I am going to fatten her up and finish her cure."
"Well, ma'am, I'm sure you are the kindest of the kind. To think of you
troubling yourself and putting yourself out, and all for our little
Hetty."
"That is my affair," said Mrs. Rushton laughing; "I don't think a mite
like that will disturb my household very much. Just you pack her up, and
I will carry her off with me to-morrow at three."
The next day the lady carried off her prize, greatly delighted to think
of how shocked her brother would be when he heard of her new "folly." As
soon as she had introduced Hetty to all her dogs, and cats, and rabbits,
Mrs. Rushton went to her desk and wrote a note to her sister-in-law
inviting the entire Wavertree family to spend a day at Amber Hill, which
was the name of her charming dwelling-place.
When, on a certain morning, therefore, the Wavertree carriage stopped at
the foot of the wide flight of steps, flanked by urns of blooming
flowers, which led up to Mrs. Rushton's great hall door, the mistress of
Amber Hill was seen descending the stone stair leading a little child by
the hand. This was Hetty, dressed in a white frock of lace and muslin,
and decked with rose-coloured ribbons.
"Isn't she a little beauty?" said Mrs. Rushton, smiling mischievously at
her grave brother and sister-in-law. "Look up, my darling, and show your
pretty brown velvet eyes. Did you ever see such a tint in human cheeks,
Isabel, or such a crop of curling hair?"
"Do you really mean that this is the village child, Amy?" asked her
brother.
"Yes, little Hetty is here!" said Amy with a gleeful laugh; "but then,
William, Lady Harriet is gone. If I had asked you to meet her to-day
instead of little Miss Gray from Wavertree, I wonder what you would have
done to find a more disagreeable expression of countenance."
"Do you wish us to understand that you have adopted this 'nobody's
child,' Amy?" said Mr. Enderby, looking more and more troubled.
"Well, to tell you the truth, I did not mean that quite," said Mrs.
Rushton; "but now that you suggest it--"
"_I_ suggest it!" cried Mr. Enderby.
"How horrified you look! But all the same you have suggested it, and I
think it is a capital idea."
"Do not come to any hasty conclusion, I implore you, Amy. Think over it
well. Consider the child's interests more than your own momentary
self-indulgence!"
Mrs. Rushton coloured with displeasure.
"I see you are determined to be as disagreeable as usual," she said
angrily. "As if the monkey could fail to be benefited by my patronage!
Pray, will she not be better in my drawing-room than getting under
horses' feet about the Wavertree roads, or losing herself in the
Wavertree woods?"
"Frankly, I think not," said Mr. Enderby stiffly.
Mrs. Rushton's eyes flashed, and she did her brother the injustice of
thinking that he feared her adoption of little Hetty would in some way
interfere with the worldly interests of his own children. She was not
accustomed to seek far for other people's meanings and motives, and
generally seized on the first which presented itself to her mind. She
knew that she only wanted to amuse herself, and had no intention of
wronging her nieces and nephew by playing with this charming babe. Why,
then, should William take such fancies in his head? In this flash of
temper she instantly decided on keeping little Hetty always with her.
Was there any reason in the world why she should not do just as she
pleased? Hetty should certainly stay with her and be as her own child
from this day forth.
"What have _you_ to say about my adopting little Hetty?" she said,
turning to her sister-in-law with a slightly defiant and wholly
triumphant smile.
"I shall say nothing," said Mrs. Enderby, "until I see how you treat
her. I trust it may turn out for the best."
Thus, all in a moment, and merely because Mrs. Rushton would not be
contradicted, was little Hetty's future in this world decided. Before
her brother had spoken, the lady of Amber Hill had had no intention of
keeping Hetty for more than a week in her house. And now she felt bound
(by the laws of human perversity) to take her and bring her up as her
own child.
In the meantime Mrs. Enderby's three children and Hetty Gray were
standing by, gazing at one another. The little Enderbys, Mark, Phyllis,
and Nell, had taken in the whole conversation, and understood perfectly,
with the quick perception of children, the strangeness of the situation,
and their own peculiar position with regard to Mrs. Kane's little girl
from Wavertree.
The little Enderbys were thinking how very odd it was that the little
girl whom they had often seen, as they walked with their nurse or drove
past in the carriage with their mother, playing on the roads in a soiled
pinafore, should be now presented to them as a new cousin. Phyllis, the
eldest, was much displeased, for pride was her ruling fault. Mark and
Nell were charmed with the transformation in Hetty and very much
disposed to accept her as a playfellow, though they remembered all the
time that she was not their equal.
Hetty, being only four years old, was supremely unconscious of all that
was being said, and meant, and thought over her curly head. She gazed at
the three other children, and, repelled by Phyllis's cold gaze, turned
to Mark and Nell, and stretched out a little fat hand to each of them.
"Come and see the beautiful flowers!" she said gleefully; "you never saw
such lovely ones!"