Fetch me the BATTo kill the RAT.
Fetch me the BATTo kill the RAT.
Fetch me the BATTo kill the RAT.
After this ferocious couplet came the flamboyant coloured drawing of a large yellow flower, unlike any flower ever born in any field of the wide world. The yellow flower being duly considered as a growth of distinct individuality, other two lines appeared—
Look here and seeThe BUMBLE-BEE.
Look here and seeThe BUMBLE-BEE.
Look here and seeThe BUMBLE-BEE.
This particular page of his “picture-book” had often puzzled Boy. When Gerty had first read to him—
Fetch me the BATTo kill the RAT,
Fetch me the BATTo kill the RAT,
Fetch me the BATTo kill the RAT,
he had at once asked,—
“Where rat?”
Gerty had sought everywhere all over the ornate capital letter and the other designs on the page for the missing animal,—but in vain. Therefore she had been reluctantly compelled to admit the depressing truth,—
“There ain’t no rat, Master Boy dear!”
“Whyno rat?” pursued Boy, solemnly.
Driven to desperation, a bright idea suddenly crossed Gerty’s brain.
“I ’xpect it’s cos it’s killed,” she said,—“See, Master Boy! It’s ‘a bat to kill a rat.’ And the rat’s killed!”
“Poo’ rat!” commented Boy thoughtfully—“Gone! Poo’—Poo’ rat!—gone altogezzer!”
He sighed,—and refused to ‘look here and see, the Bumble-bee.’ He really wished to knowwhoit was that had asked for a bat to kill a rat, andwhythat unknown individual had been so furiously inclined. But he kept these desires to himself; for he had an instinctive sense that though Gerty was all kindness, she was not quite the person to be trusted with his closest confidences.
Just now he went into a corner, picture-book in hand, and sat, watching his ‘Muzzy’ and ‘Kiss-Letty’ taking tea together. Muzzy’s back was towards him, and he could not help wondering why it was so big and broad? Why it was so difficult to getroundMuzzy for example? He had no such trouble with Kiss-Letty. She was so slim and yet so strong,—and once, when she had lifted him up and carried him from one room to the other, he felt as though he were ‘throned light in air,’ so easy and graceful had been the way she bore him. Now Muzzy always took hold of him as if he were a lump. Not that he argued this fact at all in his little mind,—he wassimply thinking—thinking,—yes, if the sober truth must be told, he was thinking quite sadly and seriously how it happened that Muzzy was ugly and Kiss-Letty pretty! It was such a pity Muzzy was ugly!—for surely itwasugly to have red blotches on the face, and hair like the arm-chair stuffing? Such a pity—such a pity for Muzzy? Such a pity too for Boy! Ah, and such a pity it is for all idle, slovenly women who “let themselves go” and think their children ‘take no notice’ of indolence, dirt, and discordant colours. The sense of beauty and fitness was very strong in Boy. Where he got it was a mystery,—it was certainly not a heritage derived from either of his parents. He did not know that ‘Kiss-Letty’ was many years older than ‘Muzzy,’—but he did know that she was ever so much more charming and agreeable to look at. He judged by appearances,—and these were all in ‘Kiss-Letty’s’ favour. For in truth the elderly spinster looked a whole decade younger than the more youthful married woman. Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir, though she took life with such provokingly indifferent ease, ‘wore’ badly,—Miss Leslie, despite many concealed sorrows and disappointments, wore well. Her face was still rounded and soft-complexioned,—her eyes were bright and clear,—while her figure was graceful and her dress choice and elegant. Boy indeed thought ‘Kiss-Letty’ very beautiful, and he was not without experience. Several well-known “society beauties” ofthe classed and labelled sort, who are hawked about in newspaper ‘fashionable’ columns as wearing blue or green, or “looking lovely in white,” and “stately in pink”—were wont to visit Captain the Honourable and Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir on their ‘at-home’ days, and Boy was always taken into the drawing-room to see them,—but somehow they made no impression on him. They lacked something—though he could not tell what that something was. None of them had the smile of Kiss-Letty, or her soft dove-like glance of eye. Peering at her now from his present corner Boy considered her a very angel of loveliness. And he was actually going away with her, to her ‘grand big house,’ Muzzy said. Boy tried to think what the ‘grand big house’ would be like. The nearest approach his imagination could make to it was Aladdin’s palace, as pictured in one of the ‘fairy landscapes’ of a certain magic lantern which a very burly gentleman, a Major Desmond, had brought to him at Christmas. Major Desmond was a large, jovial, white-haired, white-moustached personage, with a rollicking mellow laugh, and an immense hand which, whenever it was laid on Boy’s head, caressed his curls with the gentleness of a south wind touching the petals of a flower. Muzzy’s hand was hard and heavy indeed compared to the hand of Major Desmond. Major Desmond was a friend of Kiss-Letty’s,—that was all Boy knew about him,—that and the magic-lantern incident. Ruffling and crinkling up the pages of the too-familiar ‘picture book’ mechanically, Boy went on with his own little quaint sequence of thought,—till suddenly, just as Muzzy and Kiss-Letty had finished their tea, a dull crash was heard in the opposite room, accompanied by a loud oath—then came silence. Boy trotted out of his corner, his little face pale with fright.
“OhPoo’Sing!” he cried. “Dads ill!—Dads hurted! Me go to Dads!”
“No—no!” and Miss Letty hastened to him and caught him in her arms—“No, dear! Wait a minute! Wait, darling! Let Mother see first what is the matter.”
Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir had risen, and was about to open the door and make some casual inquiry, when Gerty came in, somewhat pale but giggling.
“It’s only master, ’m,” she said. “His foot tripped, and down he fell. He ain’t hurt hisself. He don’t even trouble to get up—he’s just a-sittin’ on the floor with the whisky-bottle as comfoble as you please!”
Miss Letty shuddered as she listened, and clasped Boy more warmly to her heart, placing her gentle hands against his ears lest he should hear too much.
“Papa’s all right, Boy dear,” she said.—“He has just let something fall on the floor. See?”
“Zat all?” queried Boy with an anxious look.
“That’s all. Now”—and Miss Letitia took his dumpy wee hand in her own and led him across the room—“come along, and we’ll have a nice drivetogether, shall we? Gerty, have you got Master Boy’s things?”
“Yes, ’m.” And Gerty, flopping down on both knees in front of the little fellow, pulled a miniature overcoat round his tiny form and stuck a sailor-hat (marked ‘Invincible’ on the ribbon) jauntily on his head—“There you are, Master Boy, dear! Ain’t you grand, eh? Going away visiting all by your own self! Quite like a big man!”
Boy smiled vaguely but sweetly, and turned one of the buttons on his coat round and round meditatively. Quite like a big man, was he? Well, he did not feel very big, but on the contrary particularly small—and especially just now, because Muzzy was standing upright, looking down upon him with a spacious air of infinite and overwhelming condescension. Surely Muzzy was a very large woman?—might not one sayextralarge? Boy stretched out his hand and grasped her skirt, gazing wistfully up at the bulk above him,—the bulk which now stooped, like an over-full sack of wheat toppling forward, to kiss him and bid him good-bye.
“Remember, you’ve never been away from me before, Boy,”—and ‘Muzzy’ spoke in a kind of injured tone—“so I hope you will be good and obedient, and keep your clothes clean. And when you get to Miss Leslie’s house, don’t smear your fingers on the walls, and mind you don’t break anything. You know it won’t be as it is here,where you can tumble about as you like all day and play——”
“Oh, but hecan!” interposed Miss Leslie hastily—“I assure you he can!”
“Pardon me, Letitia, he cannot”—and Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir swelled visibly with matronly obstinacy as she spoke—“It is not likely that inyourhouse you can have wooden soldiers all over the floor. It would be impossible. Boy has very odd ways with his soldiers. He likes to ‘camp them out’ in different spots of the pattern on the carpet—and of course itdoesmake a place untidy. When one is a mother, one does not mind these things”—this with a superior and compassionate air—“but you, with your precise notions of order, will find itverytrying.”
Miss Leslie protested, with a little smile, that really she had no particularly ‘precise’ notions of order.
“Oh yes, you have,” declared Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir emphatically—“Don’t tell me you haven’t, Letitia,—all old maids are the same. Then there is that dreadful Cow of Boy’s,—the thing Major Desmond gave him, along with the magic lantern,—he can do without the lantern, of course—but I really am afraid he had better take his Cow!”
Miss Letitia laughed—and a very pretty, musical little laugh she had.
“Oh, by all means let us have the Cow!” she said gaily. “Where is it, Boy?”
Boy looked up, then down,—to the east, to thewest, and everywhere into the air, without committing himself to a reply. Gerty came to the rescue.
“I’ll fetch it,” she said briskly. “I saw it on Master Boy’s bed a minute ago.”
She left the room, to return again directly with the interesting animal in question—quite a respectably-sized toy cow with a movable head which wagged up and down for a long time when set in motion by the touch of a finger. It had a blue ribbon round its neck, and Boy called it ‘Dunny.’ He welcomed it now as he saw it with the confiding smile of long and experienced friendship.
“Ullo Dunny!” he said—“Wants out wiz Boy? Tum along zen!” And receiving the pasteboard quadruped in his arms he embraced it with effusion.
“It is most absurd!” said Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir grandiosely—“Still it would be rather awkward for you, Letitia, if he were to start crying for his Cow!”
“It would indeed!” and the laughter still lighted up Miss Letitia’s soft eyes with a keen and merry twinkle—“I would not be without the Cow for worlds!”
Something in her voice or smile caused Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir to feel slightly cross. There was an unmistakable air of youth about this “old maid”—a sense of fun and a spirit of enjoyment which were not in ‘Muzzy’s’ composition. And ‘Muzzy’ straightway got an idea into her head that she was “out ofit,” as it were,—that Miss Letitia, Boy and ‘Dunny’ all understood each other in a manner which she could never grasp, and knew the way to a fairy-land where she could never follow. And it was with a touch of snappishness that she said,—
“Well!—if you are going, hadn’t you better go? My husband will probably be coming in here soon,—and he might perhaps make some objection to Boy’s leaving——”
“Oh, I won’t run the risk ofthat!” answered Miss Leslie quickly. “Come along, Boy!—say good-bye to Mother!”
Holding his ‘Cow’ with one hand to his breast, Boy raised his pretty little face to be kissed again.
“Goo’ bye, Muzzy dee-ar!” he murmured—“’Ope Dads better soon! Kiss Dads for Boy!”
This was his parting message to the drunkard in the next room,—and having uttered it, he drew a long breath as of one who prepares to plunge into unknown seas, and resigned himself to ‘Kiss-Letty,’ who led him gently along, accommodating her graceful swift step to his toddling movements, through the hall and outside to her brougham, where the footman in attendance, smiling broadly at the sight of Boy, lifted the little fellow in, and seated him cosily on the soft cushions. Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir and the servant Gerty watched his departure from the house door.
“I will take every care of him!” called MissLetitia, as she followed her small guest into her carriage—“Don’t be at all anxious!”
She waved her hand,—the footman shut the door, and mounted the box,—and in another minute the smart little equipage had turned the corner of Hereford Square and disappeared. Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir remained for a few seconds on the steps of her house, airing herself largely, and patronising with a casual glance the clear blue of the afternoon sky.
“What a vain old woman that Miss Leslie is!” she remarked to Gerty—“Really she tries to pass herself off as about thirty!”
Gerty sniffed, as usual.
“Oh, I don’t think so, ’m!” she said—“I don’t think she tries to pass herself off as anything, ’m! And I wouldn’t never call her vain. She’s just the real lady, every inch of her, and of course she can’t help herself lookin’ nice. And what a mercy it is for Master Boy to be took away just now!—for I didn’t like to mention it before, ’m, but I don’t know what we’re goin’ to do with the Cap’en,—he’s goin’ on worse than ever,—an he’s bin an’ torn nearly every mossel of his clothes off,—an’ a puffeckly disgraceful sight he is, ’m, lyin’ sprawled on the floor a-playin’ ‘patience’!”
Miss Letitia’shouse, her “great big house,” as Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir had expansively described it to Boy, was situated on the sunniest side of Hans Place. It was tastefully built, and all the window-ledges had floral boxes delightfully arranged with flowers growing in pots and hanging baskets, over which on warm bright days spacious crimson-and-white awnings stretched forth their protective shade, giving the house-front quite a gay and foreign effect. The door was white, and a highly-polished brass knocker glinted in the sunshine with an almost knowing wink, as much as to say—“Use me—And you shall see—Hospitalitee!” When Miss Letty’s brougham drove up, however, this same knowing knocker was not called into requisition, for the butler had heard the approaching wheels, and had seen the approaching trotting roans through a little spy-window of his own in the hall, so that before Miss Letty had stepped from the vehicle and had “jumped” her small visitor out also, the door was opened and the butler himself stood, a sedate figure of civil welcome on the threshold. Without betraying himself by so muchas a profane smile, this dignitary of the household accepted the Cow and the brown paper parcel which constituted all Boy’s belongings. He took them, so to speak, to his manly bosom, and then, waving away the carriage, coachman, footman and horses with a slight yet stately gesture, he shut the house door and followed his “lady” and the “young gentleman” through the hall into a room which beamed with light, warmth and elegance,—Miss Letty’s morning-room or boudoir—where, with undisturbed serenity he set the Cow on the table between a cabinet portrait of Mr. Balfour and a small bronze statuette of Mercury. The Cow looked rather out of place there, but it did not matter.
“Will you take tea, Madam?” he asked, in a voice rendered mellifluous by the constant and careful practice of domestic gentleness.
“No, thank you, Plimpton,” replied Miss Letty cheerfully; “we have had tea. Just ring the bell for Margaret, will you?”
Plimpton bowed, and withdrew, not forgetting to deposit the brown paper parcel on a chair as he made his exit. Boy stood speechless, gazing round him in a state of utter bewilderment, and only holding to any sense of reality in things by keeping close to “Kiss-Letty,” and for the further relief of his mind glancing occasionally at the familiar “Dunny,” who presented the appearance of grazing luxuriously on an embroidered velvet table-cloth. Instinctivelyaware of the little fellow’s sudden shyness and touch of fear, Miss Letty did not allow him to remain long oppressed by his vague trouble. Kneeling down beside him, she took off his hat, pulled him out of his tiny overcoat, and kissed his little fat cheeks heartily.
“Now you are at home with Kiss-Letty,” she said, smiling straight into his big innocent blue eyes,—“aren’t you?”
Boy’s breath came and went quickly—his heart beat hard. He lifted one dumpy hand and dubiously inserted a forefinger through the loops of Miss Letty’s ever-convenient neck-chain. Then he smiled with responsive sweetness into the kind face so close to his own.
“’Ess,” he murmured very softly, “Boy wiz Kiss-Letty! But me feels awfoo’ funny!”
Miss Letitia laughed and kissed him again.
“Feels awfoo’ funny, do you?” she echoed. “Oh, but I feel just the same, Boy! It’s awfoo’ funny for me to have you here all to myself, don’t you think so?”
Boy’s smile broadened—he began to chuckle,—there was the glimmering perception of a joke somewhere in his brain. Just at that moment a comfortable-looking woman in a neat black dress, with a smart white apron, entered, and to her Miss Letty turned.
“This is the dear little fellow I told you about, Margaret,” she said, “the only son of the D’Arcy-Muirs. Master Boy he is called. Boy, will you say ‘how do you do’ to Margaret?”
Boy looked up. He was easier in his mind now and felt much more at home.
“How do, Margit?” he said cheerfully. “Me tum to stay wiz Kiss-Letty.”
“Bless the wee laddie!” exclaimed Margaret in the broad soft accent of Inverness, of which lovely town she was a proud native; and down she flopped on her knees, already the willing worshipper of one small child’s winsomeness. “And a grand time ye’ll have of it, I’m thinking, if ye’re as good as ye’re bonnie! Come away wi’ me now and I’ll wash ye’r bit handies and put on anither suit,” for her quick eye had perceived the brown paper parcel while her quick mind had guessed its contents. “And what time will he be for bed, mem?”
“What time do you go to bed, Boy?” asked Miss Letty, caressing his curls.
“Eight klock!” responded Boy promptly; “Gerty puts me in barf and zen in bed.”
Both Miss Leslie and her maid laughed.
“Well, it will be just the same to-night,” said ‘Kiss-Letty’ gaily; “only it will be Margaret instead of Gerty. But it’s a long way off eight o’clock,—you go with Margaret now, and she will bring you back to me in the drawing-room, and there you shall see some pictures.”
Boy smiled at the prospect,—he was ready foranything now. He put his hand trustfully in that of Margaret, merely observing in a casual sort of way—
“Dunny tum wiz me.”
Margaret looked round enquiringly.
“He means his Cow,” explained Miss Letty, taking that animal from its velvet pasture-land and handing it to her maid, who received it quite respectfully. “Just remember, Margaret, will you, that he likes the Cow on his bed! It sleeps with him always.”
Mistress and maid exchanged a laughing glance, and then Boy trotted off. Miss Letty watched him slowly stumping up her handsome staircase, holding on to Margaret’s hand and chattering all the way, and a sudden haze of tears blinded her sight. What she had missed in her life!—what she had missed! She thought of it with no selfish regret, but only a little aching pain, and even now she stilled that pain with a prayer—a prayer that though God had not seen fit to bless her with the love of husband or children she might still be of use in the world,—of use perchance if only to shield and benefit this one little human life of Boy’s which had attracted so much of her interest and affection. And with this thought, dismissing her tears, she went up to her own room, changed her walking dress for a graceful tea-gown of black Chantilly lace which clothed her slender figure with becoming ease and dignity, and went into her drawing-room, where, near the French window which opened into a beautiful conservatory,stood a bluff, big gentleman with a white moustache, chirruping tenderly to a plump bullfinch, which made no secret of the infinite surprise it felt at such strange attempts to imitate melodious warbling. Miss Leslie uttered a low exclamation of pleasure.
“Why, Dick,” she said, “this is delightful! I thought you had gone abroad?”
“So I was going,” responded Dick—otherwise Major Desmond, advancing to take Miss Letty’s outstretched hand and raise it gallantly to his lips,—“but just as I was about to start, I read in the newspapers of a fellow—a man who was once in my regiment—who had got insulted by a dirty ragamuffin of a chap in the Custom-house on the French frontier,—and I said to myself—‘What!—am I going out of England to be treated as if I were a thief, and have my portmanteau searched by a Frenchy? No!—as an English officer I won’t submit to it! I will stay at home!’ It was a sudden resolution. You know I’m a fellow to make sudden resolutions, am’t I, Letty? Well, give you my word, I never looked upon Custom-house regulations in the same light as I do now! Come to think of it, you know, directly we leave our own shores we’re treated like thieves and rascals by all the foreigners,—and why should we expose ourselves to it? Eh? I saywhy?”
Miss Leslie laughed.
“Well, I’m sureIdon’t know why,” she answered. “Only I rather wonder you never thought of all thisbefore. You have always gone abroad some time in the year, you know.”
The Major pulled his white moustache thoughtfully.
“Yes, I have,” he admitted. “And why the devil—I beg your pardon!—I have done it I can’t imagine. England’s good enough for anybody. There’s too much gadding about everywhere nowadays. And the world seems to me to shrink in consequence. Shrink! by Jove!—it’s no bigger than a billiard ball!”
Miss Letty smiled, and said “Sweet!” to her bullfinch, which straightway warbled with delightful inaccuracy the quaint air of “The Whistling Coon.”
“Bravo! Bravo!” exclaimed Major Desmond, after listening attentively to the little bird’s performance. “Now why the chap couldn’t do that for me I can’t understand. I have been chirruping to him till my tongue aches—and couldn’t get a note out of him. Only a wink. You just say ‘sweet’ and off he starts. Well, and what have you been doing with yourself, Letty? You look very fit.”
“Oh, I’m always ‘fit’ as you call it,” said Miss Leslie placidly. “I live the same quiet life month after month, you know, and I suppose it’s scarcely possible for anything to go very wrong with me. I have passed through my storm and stress. The days go by now all in the same even, monotonous way.”
Major Desmond took two or three turns up and down the room.
“Well, if you find it even and monotonous to bedoing good all your time,” he observed, “I can only say that I wish a few more people would indulge in monotony! But don’t you mean to have a change?”
“Oh, I have provided a little distraction for myself,” said Miss Letty, smiling demurely; “I have got a young man to stay with me for a few days.”
“Young man!” exclaimed the Major. “Well, upon my word——” here he stopped short, for at that moment Boy, attired in his best suit of white flannel, his face shining with recent ablutions, and his golden hair brushed into a shining aureole of curls round his brow, trotted into the room with a cheerful confidence and assertiveness quite wonderful to see.
“Ullo, Major!” he exclaimed: “Zoo tum to see Boy?”
Major Desmond rose to the occasion at once.
“Of course!” he said, and lifting Boy in his arms he set him on his broad shoulder. “Of course I have come to see you! Impossible to keep away knowing you to be here!”
Boy chuckled.
“Me tum to stay wiz Kiss-Letty,” he announced.
“So I perceive,” replied the Major—and turning to Miss Leslie he said, “This is the young man, eh, Letty? Well, however did you manage to get hold of him?”
“I will tell you all about it at dinner,” she answered in a low tone. “You will stay and dine?”
“With pleasure—in fact I hoped you would ask me,” responded the Major frankly; “I’m sick of club food.”
Boy from his lifted position on the Major’s shoulder had been quietly surveying everything in the room. He now pointed to a copy of Burne-Jones’s “Golden Stair.”
“Pitty ladies,” he remarked.
“Yes,” agreed Major Desmond, “very pitty! All so good and sweet and lovely, aren’t they, Boy? Each one sweeter, gooder, lovelier as they come,—and all so full of pleasant thoughts that they have almost grown alike. One ideal of goodness taking many forms!”
He spoke to himself now and not to Boy—and his eyes rested musingly on Miss Letty. She was just setting a large vase of roses on the grand piano. She looked from his distance a very gentle, fragile lady—dainty and elegant too—almost young.
“Kiss-Letty wiz ze roses,” observed Boy.
“Just so!” agreed the Major, “and that is where she always is, Boy! Roses mean everything that is good and sweet and wholesome, and I should not wonder if ‘Kiss-Letty’ was not something of a rose itself in her way!”
“Oh, Dick!” expostulated Miss Letty, “how can you talk such nonsense to the child! What flattery to an old woman like me!”
“Boy doesn’t know whether I’m talking nonsenseor the utmost wisdom,” responded the Major undauntedly. “And as I have often told you, you will never be old to me, Letty. You are the best friend I ever had, and if friends are not the roses of life, I should like to know what flowers they do represent! And what I have said before, I say again, that I’m ready to marry you to-morrow if you’ll have me.”
“Oh, dear me!” sighed Miss Leslie, with a little tremulous laugh. “Just think! Saying such a thing before Boy!”
“Boy! I guarantee he doesn’t understand a word I have been talking about. Eh, Boy? Do you know what I have been saying to ‘Kiss-Letty’?”
Boy looked down at him with a profound air of cherubic wisdom.
“Wants marry Kiss-Letty ’morrow if ’ave me,” he said solemnly.
And then Major Desmond had one of his alarming laughs,—a laugh which threatened to dislodge Boy altogether from his position and throw him headlong on the floor. Miss Letty laughed too, but more gently, and on her pale cheeks there was a rosy tinge suggestive of a blush.
“Well, well!” said the Major, recovering from his hilarity at last,—“Boy is not such a fool as he looks, evidently! There, Letty, I won’t tease you any more. But you are very obstinate, you know,—yes, you are! What does Longfellow say?—
‘Trust no future, howe’er pleasant,Let the dead past bury its dead:Act, act, in the living present,Heart within and God o’erhead.’
‘Trust no future, howe’er pleasant,Let the dead past bury its dead:Act, act, in the living present,Heart within and God o’erhead.’
‘Trust no future, howe’er pleasant,Let the dead past bury its dead:Act, act, in the living present,Heart within and God o’erhead.’
That’s wholesome stuff, Letty. I like Longfellow because he is always straight. Some poets go giggetting about in all sorts of dark corners and pop out suddenly upon you with a fire-cracker of a verse which you can’t understand a bit, because all the meaning fizzles out while you are looking at it,—but Longfellow!—‘Let the dead past bury its dead.’ That’s sense, Letty. And ‘Act, act in the living present.’ Why, that’s sense too. And why don’t you do it?”
“I think I try to do it,” answered Miss Letty quietly; “I like to be useful wherever I go. But for me there is no dead past, as you know,—it lives always with me and makes the best and sweetest part of the present.”
“There, I suppose I’ve been putting my foot in it again!” muttered Major Desmond, somewhat disconsolately. “You know I never meant to suggest that you did not do all the good you could and more than is necessary in your life, but what I see in Longfellow’s line is that you should ‘act, act in the living present’ for yourself, Letty. For yourself—make yourself happy, as well as others—makemehappy! Now, wouldn’t that be a praiseworthy deed?”
“Not at all,” replied Miss Letty, smiling, “for you deserve to be much happier than I could ever make you. You know there are many charming young women you could marry.”
“No, I don’t know anything of the sort,” said the Major decisively. “The young women of the present day are all hussies—brazen-faced hussies, in my opinion. Girls don’t blush any more nowadays; men blush for them. No—you’re not going to get rid of me in that way, Letty. At my age I’m not going to be such a vain old ass as to go smirking after girls who would only laugh at me behind my back. I don’t believe in philandering, but I believe in love—yes, love at all ages and in all seasons—but it must be the real thing and no sham about it.” Here he stopped, for Boy was wriggling on his shoulder and showing unmistakable signs of wishing to go free; so he gently set him down. “There you are, little chap!—and there you go—straight for the roses and ‘Kiss-Letty’! Lucky rascal!” This as Boy trotted up to Miss Leslie and stretched his short arms caressingly round her soft lace skirts.
“Where’s booful pick-shures?” he demanded; “Boy likes pick-shures.”
Miss Leslie then bethought herself that she had promised he should see some ‘booful pick-shures’ when he came into the drawing-room, and turning towards a pile oféditions de luxein large quarto offamous works such as “Don Quixote,” “Idylls of the King,” and Dante’s “Divina Commedia,” she hesitated.
“Which shall I give him, Dick?” she asked the Major.
“Put ’em all on the floor and let him choose for himself,” was the reply. “I believe in treating children like lambs and birds—let them frisk and fly about in the fields of general information as they like,—choose their own bits of grass as it were. Now here’s a quintessence of brain for you,”—and he lifted four large volumes off the side-table where they generally stood and placed them on the floor—“Come here, Boy! Shakespeare, Dante, Cervantes, Tennyson!—Never heard of ’em, did you? No!—but you will probably have the pleasure of making the acquaintance of all four of ’em in a few years. That’s where the wonderful immortality of genius comes in,—the dead author is spiritually able to shake hands with and talk to each and every generation which follows him. There is a wonderful secret in the power of expressed thought if we could only fathom it. Now, which one are you going for first?”
Boy sat down on the floor and considered. One or two of the big books he opened cautiously and looked in as though expecting to see some strange living object inside,—then he shut them quickly, smiling mysteriously to himself the while. Then in the same doubtful way he peeped into the second volume of Dante entitled “Paradiso”—and lo! a pictureof angels ascending and descending—one of Doré’s most wonderful conceptions of forms of light portrayed in a dazzling atmosphere,—and his blue eyes sparkled—he opened the book wider and wider—till the whole page burst upon his view, whereupon he curled down closer still and stared silently. Miss Letty seated herself in a low chair, and took out some dainty embroidery, and while her swift needle went in and out with a bright-coloured silk behind it, which wove a flower as it moved, she watched the little fellow, and Major Desmond sitting opposite to her did the same. The bullfinch began a scrap of his ‘aria’ but broke off to preen his wing,—and there was a silence in the pretty room while Boy’s innocent little face drooped in a rapture over the pictured scene of heavenly glory. Not a word did he utter,—but merely drew a long breath like a sigh, and his eyes darkened with an expression of wistful gravity. Then he turned over a few more pages and came upon that most exquisite “Cross” of Doré’s imagination, where the dying Saviour of the world hangs crucified, but is surrounded at every point by angels. This seemed to fascinate him more than the other, and he remained absorbed for many minutes, enrapt and speechless. Some unaccountable influence held Miss Leslie and her old friend Dick Desmond silent too. The thoughts of both were very busy. The Major had a secret in his soul which, had he declared it, would have well-nigh killed Letitia Leslie,—heknew that the man she had loved, and whose memory she honoured with such faithful devotion, had been nothing but a heartless scamp, who in an unguarded moment had avowed to him, Major Desmond, that he was going to throw over Letty when he got back from India, as he was ‘on’ with a much prettier and wealthier woman; but he had never ‘got back from India’ to carry out his intention—death had seized him in the heyday of his career, and Letty believed he had died loving her, and her only. Who would have undeceived her? Who would have poisoned the faith of that simple trusting heart? Not Dick Desmond certainly; though he had himself loved her for nearly twenty years, and being of a steadfast nature had found it impossible to love any one else. And he was more content to have her as a friend than to have the most charming ‘other woman’ as a wife. And he had jogged on quietly till now—well, now he was fifty, and Letty was forty-five.
“We’re getting on—by Jove, yes!—we’re getting on!” mused Dick. “And just think what that dead rascal out in India has cost us! Our very lives! All sacrificed! Well, never mind!—I would not spoil Letty’s belief in her sweetheart for the world.”
And yet he could not help feeling it to be a trifle ‘hard,’ as he felt the charm of Letty’s quiet presence, and saw Boy bending over Doré’s picture of the “Cross.”
“If—if she would have had me, we might have hada child of our own like that,” he mused dolefully; “and as it is, the poor little chap has got a drunken beast for a father and a slovenly fool for a mother! Well, well—God arranges things in a queer way, and I must say, without irreverence, it doesn’t seem at all a clear or a just way to me. Why the innocent should suffer for the guilty (and they always do) is a mystery.”
Letty, meanwhile, was thinking too. Such sweet and holy thoughts!—thoughts of her dead lover,—her ‘brave, true Harry,’ as she was wont to call him in her own mind—a mind which was as white and pure as the ‘Taj-Mahal,’ and which enshrined this same ‘Harry’ in its midst as a heroic figure of stately splendour and godlike honour. No man was ever endowed by woman with more virtues than Letty gave to her dead betrothed, and her faith in him was so perfect that she had become content with her loneliness because she felt that it was only for a little while,—that soon she and her beloved would meet again never to part. Is it impossible to believe that the steadfast faith and love of a good woman may uplift the departed spirit of an unworthy man out of an uttermost Hell by its force and purity? Surely in these days, when we are discovering what marvellous properties there are in simple light, and the passing of sound through space, it would be foolish to deny the probability of noble Thought radiating to unmeasured distances, and affecting for good thosewho are gone from us, whom we loved on earth,—and whose present state and form of life we are not as yet permitted to behold. Anyway, whatever wonders lie hidden in waiting for us behind Death’s dark curtain, it may be conceded that the unfaithful soul of the man she loved was in no wise injured by Miss Letty’s remembering tenderness and prayers, but rather strengthened and sustained. She was touched just now by Boy’s admiration of the pictured angels,—and to her always thoughtful mind there was something quaint in the spectacle of the little wondering fellow bending over the abstruse Great Poem of Italy which arose to life and being through the poet’s own Great Wrong. Little did the enemies of Dante dream that their names would be committed to lasting execration in a Hell so immortal as the ‘Inferno,’—though it is to be deplored that so supreme a writer should have thought it worth his while to honour, by handing down to posterity, the names of those who were as nobodies compared with himself. However he, like other old-world poets, was not permitted to see his fate beyond his own lifetime. We are wiser in our generation. We know that the more an author’s work is publicly praised the more likely it is to die quickly and immediately,—and those who desire their thoughts to last, and to carry weight with future generations, should pray for the condemnation of their present compeers in order to be in tune with the slow but steady pulse-beat of Fame. One hasonly to look back through a few centuries to see the list of the Despised who are now become the Glorious—and a study of contemporary critics on the works of Sir Walter Scott and Charles Dickens, is a very wholesome lesson to the untried writer of books who is afraid of the little acrimonies of Fleet Street. To lead the world one must first be crucified,—this is the chief lesson of practical Christianity.
“Rather curious,” said Major Desmond at last, nodding towards Boy, and speaking softly as if he were in church, “how he seems to like those fanciful things!”
Miss Letty smiled.
“Boy!”
Boy looked up with a start.
“Do you like the picture-book?”
Boy gave no answer in words. He merely nodded and placed one dumpy hand on the “Cross of Angels,” to keep the place. Suddenly, however, he found voice. He had turned over a few more pages, though still careful not to lose the picture he had selected as his favourite, when he stopped and exclaimed breathlessly,—
“Boy bin there!”
The Major, with remarkable alertness, went down on the floor beside him and looked over his golden head.
“Boy been there! Nonsense! What! In that wonderful garden, with all those flowers and treesand lovely angels flying about! Boy couldn’t get there if he tried!”
Boy looked at him with solemnly reproachful eyes.
“Tell ’oo Boy bin there,” he repeated. “Boy seen f’owers and boo’ful people! Boy knowsvezywell about it!”
The Major became interested.
“Oh, all right!—I don’t wish to contradict you, little chappie!” he said with a cheery and confidential air,—“But when were you there last, eh?”
Boy considered—his rosy lips tightened, and his fair brows puckered in a frown of mental puzzlement.
“Me dunno,” he replied at last: “long, long time ‘go—awfoo’ long!” and he gave a deep sigh. “Dunno ’ow long—” here he studied the picture again with an approving air of familiarity. “But Boy ’members it;—pitty p’ace,—pitty flowers,—all bwight,—awfoo’ bwight!—’ess! me ’members it!”
The Major got up from his knees, dusted his trousers, and looked quizzically at Miss Letty.
“Odd little rascal,” he observed,sotto voce. “Doesn’t know a bit what he is jabbering about!”
Miss Letty’s soft blue eyes rested on the child thoughtfully.
“I’m not sure about that, Dick,” she said. “We are rather arrogant, we old worldly-wise people, in our estimate of children;—Boymayremember where he came from, and the imagination of a great artist may have recalled to him a true reality.”
Her voice was very sweet,—her face expressed a faith and hope which made it beautiful; and Dick Desmond, in his quick, impulsive fashion, caught one of her little white hands and raised it to his lips with all the gallant grace of a soldier and a gentleman.
“God bless you, Letty!” he said heartily; “I know very well whereyoucame from!—and I don’t want any picture but yourself to remind me of the fact!”
Thatevening, after Boy had gone to bed, Miss Leslie and the Major discussed the possibilities of his future with great and affectionate interest.
“Of course,” said Desmond, “it is a splendid chance for the boy,—but, Letty, that is just the very reason that I am afraid he will not be allowed to have it. The affairs of humanity are arranged in a very curiously jumbled-up fashion, and I have always found that when some specially good luck appears about to favour a deserving person, something unfavourable comes in the way and prevents him getting it. And Fortune frequently showers her choicest gifts on the most unworthy scoundrels, male and female, that burden this earth’s surface. It’s odd—it’s unfair, but it’s true.”
“Not always,” said Miss Leslie, gently. “You really must not get into the habit of looking on the worst side of life, Dick.”
“I won’t,” responded the Major promptly—“at least, not when you’re looking at me. Out of your sight I can do as I like!”
Miss Letty laughed. Then she returned to the chief subject of interest.
“You see,” she said, “it is not as if the D’Arcy-Muirs were rich and had plenty of opportunities for their son’s advance in life. They certainly have enough to live comfortably on, if they are frugal and careful, but the man is so incorrigible——”
“And the woman,” put in Major Desmond.
“Well, yes—she too is incorrigible in another way,—but after all slovenliness can scarcely be called a sin.”
“I think it can,” said the Major emphatically. “A slovenly woman is an eyesore and creates discord and discomfort by her very appearance. She is a walking offence. And when slovenliness is combined with obstinacy,—by Jove, Letty!—I tell you pigs going the wrong way home are easy driving compared to Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir!”
“Yes, I know!” and for a moment Miss Leslie’s even brows puckered in a little vexed line. “And her obstinacy is of such a strange kind,—all about the merest trifles! She argues on the question of a teacup or a duster to the extreme verge of silliness, but in important matters, such as the health or well-being of her husband—or of Boy—she lets everything go to pieces without a word of protest!”
“Delightful creature!” murmured the Major, sipping his glass of port wine with a relish: they were at dessert, and he was very comfortable,—pleasedwith the elegance of the table, which glistened with old silver, delicate glass, and tastefully arranged flowers,—and still more pleased with the grace and kindness of his gentle hostess,—“I remember her before Jim married her. A handsome large creature with a slow smile,—one of those smiles which begin in the exact middle of the lips, spread to the corners and gradually widen all over the face,—an indiarubber smile I call it,—but the men who took to her in her young days used to rave over her smile, and one idiot said she had ‘magnificent maternal brows like the Niobe in Florence.’ Good old Niobe! Yes, Letty,—there are a certain set of fellows who always lose their heads on large women,—the larger the better, give you my word! They never consider that the large girl will become a larger matron, and unless attacked by a wasting disease (which heaven forfend) will naturally grow larger every year. And I tell you, Letty, there is nothing in the world that kills a romantic passion so surely and hopelessly as Fat! Ah, you may laugh!—but it is a painful truth. Poetry—moonlight—music—kisses—all that pleasant stuff and nonsense melt before Fat. I have never met a man yet who was in love with a fat, really fat woman! And if a slim girl marries and gets fat in the years to come, her husband, poor chap, may deplore it,—deeply deplore it—but it’s very distressing—he cannot help it—his romance dies under it. Dies utterly! Ah! We’re weak creatures, we men, wecannot stand Fat. We like plumpness,—oh yes! We like round rosy curves and dimples, but not actual Fat. Now, Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir will become—indeed has become Fat.”
“Dear me!” and Miss Leslie laughed, “you really are quite eloquent, Dick! I never heard you go on in this way before. Poor Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir! She really has no alternative——”
“No alternative but to become Fat?” enquired the Major, solemnly glaring over his port wine.
“Now you know I don’t mean it in that way,” laughed Miss Leslie. “You really are incorrigible! What I wished to point out was, that when a woman finds that her husband doesn’t care a bit how she looks or what she wears, she is apt to become careless.”
“It doesn’t follow that because a man is a churl a woman should lose her self-respect,” said the Major. “Surely she should take a pride in being clean and looking as well as she can for her own sake. Then in this particular case there is Boy.”
“Yes—there is Boy,” agreed Miss Letty meditatively. “And he certainly does notice things.”
“Notice things? I should think he does! He is always noticing. He notices his mother’s untidiness, and he notices his father’s disgracefulness. If I were Jim D’Arcy-Muir I should be ashamed to meet that little chap’s eyes.”
Miss Letty sighed.
“Do you think,” she asked after a pause, “they will let me have him?”
The Major considered,—and for some minutes sat twirling the ends of his white moustache reflectively.
“Well, to tell you the truth, Letty, I don’t,” he said at last,—“I don’t believe they will for a moment. Some parents would refuse your offer on account of their love and affection for the child, and their own natural desire not to part with him. That will not be the D’Arcy-Muirs’ reason. They will simply argue that you are trying to ‘patronise’ them. It will be exactly like their muddled minds to put it that way. They will say, ‘She thinks we are going to put our son under obligations to her for her money.’ And though they conduct themselves like pigs they think a great deal of themselves in a ‘county-family’ fashion. No, Letty—I’m afraid you won’t get a chance of doing any good in that quarter. But if you like I will take soundings—that is, I will suggest the idea of such a thing and see how they take it. What do you say?”
“Oh, I wish you would!” said Miss Letty earnestly. “You see you know Captain D’Arcy-Muir——”
“Well, in a way,—yes, I know him in a way,” corrected the Major; “I used to know him better than I do now. He was never in my regiment, thank the Lord! But I will try to get hold of him in a sober moment, and see what can be done. But I don’t give out any hopes of him.”
“Oh, Dick!” sighed Miss Letty.
“Well, I shall be very sorry for your disappointment, Letty,—very sorry—and sorrier still for the little chap, for I think his life literally hangs on the balance of this chance. If he is not allowed to take it, all the worse for him,—he will come to no good, I fear.”
“Don’t say that!” pleaded Miss Leslie, with pain in her voice; “don’t say that!”
“All right, I won’t say it,” said the Major, expressing however in his face and tone of voice that he would probably think it all the same. “But the world is a bad place to fight in if you are not thoroughly well equipped for the battle. God made the world, so we are told, but I doubt whether He wished it to be quite as overcrowded as it is just now. All the professions—all the trades—all the arts—overdone! Army no go,—Navy no go. If you are a soldier and get any chance of facing fire, you know just what your reward is likely to be, unless you are a Kitchener. You may get a V.C., and after that the workhouse, like some of the Crimean heroes. And in the Navy you get literally nothing but very poor pay. The best thing for a man now is to be an explorer, and even when you are that, the world cannot be persuaded to believe that you have explored anything, or been anywhere. You have simply been sitting at home and reading up!” He laughed, and then went on, “If you get Boy what are you going to do with him?”
“I shall see what he likes to do best himself,” said Letty.
“At present he likes to hug you and see ‘pick-shures’ of heavenly places,” said the Major. “That’s a bad sign, Letty! Woman and Art spells ruin like theatrical speculation! Well! Come and have a game of chess with me before I go home to my lonely bachelor rooms;—it is really too bad of you to make a sour old man of me in this way!”
Miss Leslie laughed heartily.
“No one will ever call you a sour old man, Dick,” she said as she rose from the table. “You are the most genial and generous-hearted fellow I know.”
“Then why won’t you have me?” pleaded Desmond.
“Oh, you know why,” said Letty. “What is the use of going over it all again?”
“Going over it all—yes—I know!” said the Major dismally. “You have got it into your head that if you were to marry me, and that then afterwards we died—as we shall do—and went to Heaven—which is a question—you would find your Harry up there in the shape of a stern reproving angel, ready to scold you for having a little happiness and sympathy on earth when he was not there. Now, if things are to be arranged in that way, some folks will be in awful trouble. The ladies who have had several husbands,—the husbands who have had several wives,—stern reproving angels all round,—good gracious! What arow there will be! Fact is fact, Letty,—there cannot possibly be peace in Heaven under such circumstances!”
“Do stop talking such nonsense,” said Miss Leslie, still laughing. “Really I begin to wish you had gone abroad after all!”
“No, you don’t,” said Dick confidently, as he followed her into the drawing-room. “You are pleased to see me, you know you are! Hullo! Here’s Margaret. What’s up? Something wrong with Boy?”
“Oh no, sir,” said Margaret, who had just entered the room; “but I thought perhaps Miss Leslie would like to see him asleep. He is just the bonniest wee bairnie!”
“Oh, I must go and look at him!” said Miss Letty eagerly. “Will you come too, Dick?”
The Major assented with alacrity, and they followed Margaret upstairs, treading softly and on tiptoe as they entered the pretty airy room selected for Boy’s slumbers. It was a large room, and one corner of it was occupied by the big bed allotted to Margaret. In an arched recess, draped with white muslin, was a smaller and daintier couch,—and here Boy lay in his first sleep, his fair curls tossed on the pillow, his round soft face rosy with warmth and health, his pretty mouth slightly parted in a smile. Miss Leslie bent over him tenderly and kissed his forehead,—Major Desmond looked on in contemplative andsomewhat awed silence. Presently he noticed a piece of string tied to the little fellow’s wrist. Pointing to it he whispered solemnly,
“What’s that?”
Margaret smiled.
“Oh, he just begged me to get him a bit of string,” she said. “He said he always had to fasten his Cow up at night lest it should run away!” Margaret laughed. “Bless the wee lad! And there you see is the Cow at the foot of the bed, and he has tied it to the string in that way himself!”
“Good gracious me!” said the Major, staring, “I never heard of such a thing in my life! And the Cow can’t run away! Lucky Cow!”
Boy stirred in his sleep and smiled. A slight movement of the chubby wrist to which the beloved “Dunny” was tied caused it to wag its movable head automatically, and for a moment it looked quite a sentient thing nodding wisely over unexpressed and inexpressible pastoral problems.
“Come away,” then said Miss Letty gently. “We shall wake him if we remain any longer.”
“Yes,” said the Major dreamily, “we shall wake him! And then the Cow might bolt, or take to tossing somebody on its horns, which would be very alarming! God bless my soul! What a little chap it is! Beginning to look after a cow at his time of life!—a budding farmer, upon my word! Letty, Australia is the place for him,—a wild prairieand cattle, you know,—he is evidently a born rancher!”
Letty laughed, and they left the room together. Margaret watched them as they went downstairs, and gave a little regretful sigh.
“Poor dear Miss Letty!” she thought. “The sweetest lady that ever lived, and no man has ever been wise enough to find it out and marry her.”
She bent over Boy’s bed and carefully adjusted the coverlet to keep him warm, then lowering the light, left him sleeping peacefully with “Dunny” on guard.
Itis a trite axiom, but no less true than trite, that we are always happiest when we are most unconscious of happiness,—when the simple fact of mere existence is enough for us,—when we do not know how, or when, or where the causes for our pleasure come in, and when we are content to live as the birds and flowers live, just for the one day’s innocent delight, untroubled by any thoughts concerning the past or future. This is a state of mind which is generally supposed to vanish with early youth, though there are some few peculiarly endowed natures, sufficiently well poised, and confident of the flowing in of eternal goodness everywhere, to be serenely joyous with all the trust of a little child to the very extreme of old age. But even with men and women not so fortunately situated the days when they were happy without knowing it remain put away in their memories as the sweetest time of life, and are recalled to them again and again with more or less poignancy, when pain and disappointment, deceit, cruelty, and harshness unwind the rose-coloured veil of romance from persons and things and showthem the world at its worst. Boy, in the house of Miss Letitia Leslie, was just now living the unconscious life, and making for himself such a picture gallery of sweet little souvenirs as were destined to return to him in years to come sharpened with pain, and embittered by a profitless regret. Every morning he rose up to some new and harmless delight, among surroundings of perfect sweetness and peace,—order, cleanliness, kindness, good-humour and cheerfulness were the hourly investiture of the household,—and after he had been with “Kiss-Letty” two or three days Boy began dimly to wonder whether there really was such an individual as “Poo Sing,” or such a large lady as “Muzzy,” in the world. Not that the little fellow was forgetful of his parents,—but the parents themselves were of so hazy, and vague, and undeterminate a character that the individuality of the servant Gerty was far more real and actual to the infant mind of their son than their distinguished personalities. It is to be feared that Boy would have been but faintly sorry had he been told he was never to see his “kind good Muzzy” any more. This was not Boy’s fault by any means; the blame rested entirely with the “kind good Muzzy” herself. And probably if Boy had felt any regrets about it they would have been more for the parting from the “Poo Sing” gentleman who was so often ill. For the delusive notion of chronic illness on the part of “Poo Sing” had got firmly fixed into Boy’s littlehead,—he felt the situation to be serious,—he was full of a wistful and wondering compassion, and he had a vague idea that his Dads did not get on so well without him. But this he kept to himself. He was for the present perfectly happy, and wished for no more delightful existence than that which he enjoyed in the company of “Kiss-Letty.” He was going through some wonderful experiences of life as well. For instance, he was taken for the first time to the Zoo, and had a ride on an elephant,—a ride which filled him with glory and terror. Glory that he could ride an elephant,—for he thought it was entirely his own skill that guided and controlled the huge beast’s gentle meanderings along the smoothly rolled paths of the gardens, and terror lest, skilful and powerful though he was, he should fall, deeply humiliated, out of the howdah in which he was proudly seated. Then he was taken to Earl’s Court Exhibition, and became so wearied with the wonders there shown to him from all parts of the world,—there were so many wonders—and the world seemed so immense,—that he fell fast asleep while going round a strange pond in a strange boat called a Venetian gondola, and Major Desmond took him up in his arms, and he remembered nothing more till he found himself in his little bed with Margaret tucking him up and making him cosy. Then there were the days when he was not taken out sightseeing at all, but simply stayed with Miss Letty and accompanied her everywhere, and he was not surethat he did not like these times best of all. For after his dinner in the middle of the day, and before they went for their drive, “Kiss-Letty” would take him on her knee and tell him the most beautiful and amazing fairy stories,—descriptions of aerial palaces and glittering-winged elves, which fascinated him and kept him in open-mouthed ecstacy,—and somehow or other he learned a good deal out of what he heard. Miss Leslie was not a brilliant woman, but she was distinctly cultured and clever, and she had a way of narrating some of the true histories of the world as though they were graceful fantasies. In this fashion she told Boy of the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus,—and ever afterwards the famous navigator remained in Boy’s mind as a sort of fairy king who had made a new world. Happy indeed were all those first lessons he received concerning the great and good things done by humanity,—sweet and refining was the influence thus exerted upon him,—and if such peaceful days could have gone on expanding gradually around his life the more that life needed them, who can say what might not have been the beneficial result? But it often seems as if some capricious fate interfered between the soul and its environment; where happiness might be perfect, the particular ingredient of perfection is held back or altogether denied,—and truly there would seem to be no good reason for this. Stoic philosophy would perhaps suggest that the fortunate environment isheld back from the individual in order that he may create it for himself, and mould his own nature in the struggle,—but then it so often happens that this holding back affects the nature that is not qualified either by birth or circumstances to enfranchise itself. A grand environment is frequently bestowed on a low and frivolous character that has not, and never will have, any appreciation of its fortunate position, while all rights, privileges, and advancements are obstinately refused to the soul that would most gladly and greatly have valued them. And so it was fated to be with Boy. The happy days of his visit to Miss Letty came, as all happy days must do, to an end; and one morning, as he sat at breakfast eating a succulent slice of bread-and-jam, he was startled to see “Kiss-Letty’s” blue eyes brimming over with tears. Amazing grief and fear took possession of him,—he put down his bread-and-jam and looked pitifully at his kind friend and hostess.
“Zoo kyin’, Kiss-Letty,” he said: “Where does it hurt oo?”
Miss Letty tried to smile, but only feebly succeeded. She could have answered that “it” hurt her everywhere. “It” was a letter from Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir requesting that Boy might be returned to his home that afternoon. And Miss Letty knew that this peremptory summons meant that her wish to adopt Boy was frustrated and that the cause was lost. She looked tenderly at the sweet little face that wasturned so wistfully to hers, and said gently though with a slight quiver about her lips,—
“Muzzy wants you, darling! I am to take you home to her to-day.”
Boy gave no reply. It was the first difficult moral situation of his life, and it was hardly to be wondered at that he found it almost too much for him. The plain fact of the matter was that, however much “Muzzy” wanted him, he did not want “Muzzy.” Nor did he at all wish to go home. But he had already a dim consciousness of the awful “must” set over us by human wills, which, unlike God’s will, are not always working for good,—and he had a glimmering perception that he was bound to submit to these inferior orders till the time came when he could create his own “must” and abide by it. But he could not put these vague emotions into speech; all he did was to lose his appetite for bread-and-jam and to stare blankly at “Kiss-Letty.” She meanwhile put Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir’s letter in her pocket, and tried to assume her usual bright and cheerful air, but with very poor success. For in truth she was greatly disappointed,—and when she lifted Boy out of his chair at the table and set him down on the floor with a very fascinating toy in the shape of a ‘merry-go-round’ moved by clockwork, which however he contemplated this morning with a faint sense of the futility of all earthly pleasures, she was vaguely troubled by presentiments to whichshe could give no name. The hours wore on languidly—and it was with a sense of something like relief that she heard a sharp rat-tat-tat at the door, and a minute afterwards Major Desmond’s cheery voice in the hall. She went out to meet him, leaving Boy with his toys in her morning-room,—but one glance at his face confirmed all her worst fears.
“It’s no go, Letty!” he said regretfully, as he shook hands. “I’ve done my best. But I’ll tell you where the trouble is. It’s the woman. I could manage D’Arcy-Muir, but not that stout play-actress. When D’Arcy-Muir is sober he sees clearly enough, and realizes quite well what a capital chance it is for the little chap; but there is no doing anything with his jelly-fish of a wife. She bridles all over with offence at your proposition—says she has her own ideas for Boy’s education and future prospects. Nice ideas they are likely to be! Well! It’s no use fretting—you must resign yourself to the inevitable, Letty, and give up your pet project.”
Miss Letty listened with apparently unmoved composure while he spoke,—then when he had finished she said quietly,—
“Yes, I suppose I must. Of course I cannot press the point. One must not urge separation between mother and child. Oh yes, I must give it up”—this with a little pained smile—“I have had to giveup so many hopes and joys in life that one more disappointment ought not to matter so much, ought it? Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir has written to me—I am to take Boy back this afternoon.”
The Major’s tender heart was troubled, but he would not offer his friend any consolation,—he knew that the least said the soonest mended in such cases,—and he saw that Miss Letty was just then too vexed and grieved to bear many words even from him. So he went in to Boy, and wound up his clockwork ‘merry-go-round’ for him, and told him fabulous stories of giants,—giants who, though terrible enough to hold the world in awe, were yet unable to resist the fascinations of “hasty pudding,” and killed themselves by eating too much of that delicacy in an unguarded moment. Which remarkable narratives, in their grotesque incongruity, conveyed the true lesson that a strong or giant mind may be frequently destroyed by indulgence in one vice; though Boy was too young to look for morals in fairy legends, and accepted these exciting histories as veracious facts. And so the morning passed pleasantly after all,—though now and then a wistful look came into Boy’s eyes, and a shadow crossed the placid fairness of “Kiss-Letty’s” brow when either of the two chanced to think of the coming parting from each other. Boy however did not imagine it so much of a parting as Miss Letty knew it would be; he had a firm belief that though he was going home to “Muzzy” heshould still see a great deal of his “Kiss-Letty” all the same. She on the contrary knew enough of Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir’s obstinate disposition to be quite certain of the fact that because a hint had been thrown out by Major Desmond as to the advantages of her adopting Boy, she would be forced to see less of him than ever. Strange it is, and in a manner terrible, that the future of a whole life should be suspended thus between two human wills!—the one working for pure beneficence, the other for selfishness, and that the selfish side should win the day! These are mysteries which none can fathom; but it too often happens that a man’s career has been decided for good or evil by the amenities or discords of his parents, and their quarrels or agreements as to the manner of his education.
It was with a sad and sinking heart that Miss Leslie took Boy accompanied by the faithful “Dunny” back to the home of his progenitors that afternoon. He had more luggage to carry away than he had arrived with—a brown paper parcel would not hold his numerous toys, nor the pretty little suits of clothes his kind hostess had presented him with. So Major Desmond bought him an astonishingly smart portmanteau, which fairly dazzled him, and into this most of his new things were packed by Margaret, who was sincerely sorry to lose her little charge. The ‘merry-go-round,’ being a Parisian marvel of clockwork, had a special case of its own, and“Dunny”!—well, “Dunny” was a privileged Cow, and Boy always carried it in his arms. And thus he returned, Biblically speaking, to the home of his fathers,—the house in Hereford Square, and his large “Muzzy” received him with an almost dramatic effusiveness.
“You poor child!” she exclaimed. “How badly your hair has been brushed! Oh dear!—it’s becoming a perfect mop! We must have it cut to-morrow.”
Miss Leslie’s cheeks reddened slightly.
“Surely you will not have his curls cut yet?” she began.
“My dear Letitia, I know best,” said Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir with an irritating air of smiling condescension. “A boy—even a very young boy—looks absurd with long hair. You have been very kind and nice to him, I am sure,—but of course you don’t quite understand——”
Miss Leslie sat down opposite her with a curiously quiet air of deliberation.
“I wish to speak to you for a few minutes,” she said. “Is your husband at home?”
“No. He has gone into the country for a few days. I am quite lonely!” and Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir heaved a lazy smile. “I felt I could not possibly be a day longer without my son in the house.”
The extraordinary air of grandiloquence she gave to the words “my son in the house,” applied to a childof barely four years old, would have made Miss Leslie laugh at any other time, but she was too preoccupied just now to even smile.