"Well, as you are so fond of poetry, as you call it, I'll make up a piece about you," he said, whilst Granny glanced at the judge pleadingly, as if to ask mercy for the offender.
"Wait a moment ... yes, I have it," Uncle Godfrey said presently. And holding Chris atarm's-length, he repeated, imitating as he did so, his childish voice and accents:
"I know a little beggar,He is a little goose,He runs about all dayRampaging on the loose.I think that little beggar,Would be better for a slap;If he isn't pretty sharp,He'll get a nasty rap.
"How do you like that?" he asked, when he had finished.
He was smiling all the while in spite of his severe tone,—very often the way with Uncle Godfrey. But Chris did not see that, and with his little face scarlet, he stood still, struggling with his tears, unable to reply.
His uncle looked at him and relented.
"There, go along with you," he said, laughing and rumpling the boy's golden curls; "and don't you make yourself such a little nuisance."
The little beggar brightened up as he noted the altered tone, and Granny appeared perceptibly relieved.
"Uncle Godfrey, do you know what?" he asked with a loud sniff and half a sob. "What do you think?"
"What?" asked his uncle with some amusement.
"I'm going to be a soldier like you very soon," he said, nodding his head.
"Well, you'll have to learn to be a little more obedient," his uncle remarked with a laugh. "I'd soon find myself in a pretty position if I disobeyed orders as you do. Be off, you young rascal, and look smart. There is Briggs waiting for you by the door.
"What made him think of that jingle?" he continued, still laughing, to Granny when Chris had gone. "It was a funny thing for a little chap of his age."
"The darling has quite a turn for poetry; he has indeed," explained Granny with pride. "He takes the greatest delight in repeating his little poems, such as: 'I love little Pussy, her coat is so warm,' and 'Mary had a little lamb'. And the child says them so sweetly, so prettily too!"
Some two hours later Briggs faced Granny and myself with a countenance expressive of the deepest despair.
"He's gone, mum!" she exclaimed, tragically, throwing up her hands as she spoke.
"Gone! Gone! Who is gone?" Granny asked with bewilderment and surprise at Briggs' sudden announcement. Then, as Chris's absence struck her, she inquired fearfully:
"Has anything happened to Master Chris? Where is the child? Why is he not with you?"
"He's lost, mum!" she said, breathlessly. "Everywhere have I looked for him, high and low, up and down, but nowhere is he to be found!"
At this startling piece of intelligence Granny half rose in her chair as if to go without delay and search for the wanderer; but, recollecting the necessity for further information, she sunk back again, and asked with agitation:
"Where, then, did you leave him? When did you last see him? How long ago is it, Briggs? I must beg of you to be as accurate as possible, most accurate."
"I left him in the garden about an hour ago," she answered, on the point of tears. "I had just taken him out for a short walk, having some work to do; and thinking he'd be better for a little more air I left him in the garden when we came back. When I went for him half an hour after, not a trace of him was there to be seen!"
"But how careless, how very careless of you, Briggs!" Granny said in a reprimanding yet trembling voice. "You should not have left himout of your sight for so long. At his age! Most inconsiderate!"
"Have you looked along the road?" I suggested. "He may have wandered out there. He did so the day I arrived."
"I've walked half a mile along each way," she answered, with a hopeless sigh.
"But the garden, Briggs!" Granny exclaimed, in her anxiety hardly knowing what to say. "How could you be so thoughtless, so forgetful as not to search the garden before you went into the road?"
"But I did, mum; it was the very first thing I did do," she replied tearfully, and with something of an injured expression at this unnecessary censure.
"Have you looked over the house? He may be hiding there," I said.
"Everywhere in the house and out of it," she answered with gloomy conviction. "Not a stone have I left unturned."
We glanced from one to the other with perplexity. What could have become of the little beggar? Where could he have hidden himself, thus to escape this vigilant search?
"Wouldn't it be as well to let Mr. Wyndham know?" I said. "I think I hear him practising billiards."
"Of course, of course!" Granny answered with relief. "Why didn't I think of that at once?Briggs, go at once and ask Mr. Wyndham to speak to me."
"Well, what is it?" he said cheerfully, when he arrived upon the scene. "The youngster disappeared? There is no need for worry. Depend upon it he is hiding somewhere not very far off, and we'll soon unearth him."
"You say you have looked carefully in the garden?" he continued to Briggs.
"All over it, sir; in every corner," she replied.
"All the same, we had better do it again," he said. "It is just possible that he may have escaped you the first time. No, mother, you stay here," he said decidedly, as Granny rose with the evident intention of accompanying him. "You will only tire yourself for no purpose. If he is to be found in the garden, you may rest assured that I shall find him and bring him to you as soon as possible. Just stay here quietly with Miss Baggerley, and don't worry yourself."
Undoubtedly a very good piece of advice, this last, but one that poor Granny in her nervous state of mind found very difficult to follow.
"It is so strange, so very strange!" she said, unhappily. "I cannot understand it at all; I only pray that no accident may have happened to the child. I should have thought Briggs would have taken greater precautions if she intended to leave him alone for that time. I had a higher opinion of her, I had indeed.
"She is much to blame," she added, smoothing with a nervous little movement the curls she wore in the old fashion on each side of her face.
After this she continued her knitting, but she was plainly too restless and ill at ease to fix her attention on her work.
"My dear," she said in a minute, "it has just struck me that it would be a good thing if we were together to look upstairs; Briggs may not have searched there thoroughly. Do you not think that it would be a good plan if we were to go?"
I should have liked to answer in the negative, for she was not strong, and a little exertion soon fatigued her. But I saw that it would be a real relief to her in her anxiety to be doing something. So I did not follow my inclination, and together we went slowly upstairs, Granny leaning on my arm, in a sweet, clinging way,—a way that was all her own.
Arrived upstairs, we went conscientiously from room to room, but in vain. No success attended our efforts.
We would go into a room, when Granny, opening the door of a cupboard and peering in in a short-sighted way, would call out in a gentle, slightly quavering voice:
"Is my darling hiding here from his Granny?"
No answer coming, her face would become stillmore anxious-looking, and she would request me to see if he were under the bed.
"Will you look under the bed, my dear, and see if he is there?" she would whisper, as if fearful that he might overhear and escape us. Then as I did so, she would cry coaxingly:
"Are you hiding there, my pet, trying to frighten poor Granny? Come out, my darling, come out."
And so on from room to room till we had exhausted all those not only on the first floor but on the next also, after which she proposed exploring the attics. By this time, however, she was so tired that I persuaded her to send one of the servants instead, whilst she returned with me to the library.
Here we found Briggs waiting for us, with a face the expression of which told its tidings without words. Ill-success was so plainly written upon it, that our anxious question, "Have you found him?" seemed almost superfluous.
"Did you look everywhere, Briggs,—everywhere?" poor Granny asked anxiously, and with grievous disappointment.
"In every single nook and corner, mum," Briggs replied, with a heavy sigh. "He ain't in the garden—that's sure and certain."
"Where is Mr. Wyndham?" Granny inquired, as she sat down wearily in her arm-chair.
"He's gone round to the stables," she said."He's going to drive into Marston. He says that Master Chris this morning was talking about the recruiting-sergeant staying there, and he thinks it may be possible he has taken it into his head to go to him, fancying he can enlist."
"I really think that that is possible," I remarked.
"Dear me! dear me! What if anything should happen to the child on the way?" exclaimed Granny, with fresh care.
"I should not think of that; nothing will happen. Someone will find him and bring him back," I replied, speaking more cheerfully than I altogether felt.
As I spoke I turned to the window, more from a restless feeling of not knowing what to do with myself than for any other reason.
Certainly the last thing in the world I expected to see at that particular moment was the little beggar.
Yet—to my utter astonishment—that was exactly what I did see!
There he was, after causing all the confusion and alarm of which I have told you, walking down the drive as calmly as possible; as if to disappear mysteriously from home for about two hours, without leaving any idea as to his whereabouts, was the most ordinary and everyday habit a little boy could indulge in.
He was not alone, but was in company with atall and gorgeous individual, whom I concluded was the sergeant, and the innocent cause of the little beggar's last and most startling escapade.
He walked hand in hand with him in the most confiding fashion, chattering to him apparently in his usual fashion—without the least reserve, whilst Jacky frisked along by their side.
As my eyes fell upon this little group I uttered a loud exclamation of surprise, which induced Granny to look up inquiringly.
"Why, there he is! Chris!" I exclaimed, "coming down the drive!" and accompanied by Briggs I hurried to meet him, Granny following more leisurely.
"Here I am! Here I am!" cried the little vagabond, gaily bounding forward to meet me. "I've 'listed, and I'm a soldier now like Uncle Godfrey."
"A soldier!" burst out Briggs contemptuously. "As naughty a child as can be found in Christendom. That's what I should say!"
"Yes, Chris," I said, in the gravest voice I could assume, "you have been a very naughty little boy indeed."
At these strictures on his conduct Chris pouted and kicked the gravel with some violence, whilst his companion relaxed into a broad smile, which he put up his hand to hide.
"I found this here young gentleman, marm, on his way to Marston," he said, touching his cap. "I came across him quite by a chance, asyou may say, it happening that I was taking a walk in this direction. 'I've come to find you,' he says, ''cause I want to 'list and be a soldier like my Uncle Godfrey,' says he. 'But I won't shoot you,' says he, ''cause I know how to hold my gun, and I don't want to be put in chokee,' he says. Guessing as how there was something amiss I finds out where he lives, and so here he is."
"Is he quite well and safe, quite well and safe?" Granny asked nervously at this point, arriving just in time to hear the conclusion of the sergeant's explanation. "Oh, Chris, my darling, what have you been doing?"
"I'm a soldier now, my Granny," he stated proudly, with a defiant look at Briggs and myself. "He said I was, didn't you?" he asked, turning to the sergeant, who smiled again. "He's going to lend me his soldier clothes till you buy me some. He said he would."
"He'd have been here before if I could have got a lift, marm," explained the sergeant, "but it chanced nothing passed by us. It's been a long walk for the young gentleman, I'm afraid."
But Granny did not at once reply; she was looking at the little beggar with all the love of her heart overflowing her eyes, and as if she never again could bear to let him out of her sight. Indeed, for the moment she was so absorbed that I think she hardly realized what the sergeant said.
There was a slight pause, and then she said with much fervent gratitude and an old-fashioned courtesy of manner:
"I am more indebted to you than I can express for your kind care of my little grandson. It is, indeed, a great relief to my mind to see him back safely."
"Why, my Granny!" cried Chris, with a little skip and a laugh, "Ialwayswas safe. There was nothing the matter with me!"
"Hush! my child," Granny then continued, though with an effort, as if the reaction from the anxiety she had been suffering was becoming too much for her control: "Will you not go round to the kitchen and rest? And will you kindly tell Parker, my butler, that I have sent you, and to see that you have some refreshment after your long walk."
"Thank you, marm," said the sergeant, touching his cap once more as he left, followed by a regretful glance from Chris.
"I should like to go with him," he remarked.
"My darling," began Granny reproachfully—then stopped short and tried to smile at me.
"I'm very silly," she said, as the tears filled her eyes; "but, my dear, I have been feeling so anxious, so anxious, you understand...."
She could say no more, but going to a wicker-chair near, she sat down, and covered her eyes with her hand.
I said nothing, for I knew that her tears were a relief to her overwrought feelings. So for a time there was silence, which was at length broken by the little beggar, who, looking at her with pity mingled with curiosity, remarked in a hushed voice:
"I b'lieve my Granny is crying!"
"And who do you think has made her cry?" suddenly asked a severe voice, and turning round somewhat apprehensively, the little beggar saw Uncle Godfrey—who, unperceived and unheard, had crossed the lawn—confronting him in righteous indignation.
"I say, who do you think has made her cry?" he reiterated, as Granny threw him an imploring glance as if to beg mercy for the offender. "I have just heard something of your last piece of disobedience from your friend the sergeant," he continued sternly. "Fortunately for me I met him not two minutes ago, and so was saved a useless drive into Marston on your account. Now I should like to hear some explanation of your conduct."
He looked so very tall and inflexible as he towered above the little beggar, and the little beggar looked so very small and abject as he stood before him, that my heart was stirred with pity for the diminutive transgressor in spite of his misdeeds.
"Well, answer," Uncle Godfrey said peremptorily."What is the meaning of your behaviour, sir?"
"I w—w—went to be a s—s—soldier," stammered Chris, winking his eyes to keep back his tears, and grasping hold of Granny's hand as if for protection.
"What did I tell you this morning?"
"I forget," answered the little beggar tremblingly.
"Then think," his uncle said; whilst Granny said pleadingly:
"Don't be too severe, my son. He's only a little child."
"Quite old enough to know better," he replied unrelentingly; and, as Chris did not at once answer, "Didn't I tell you," he went on, "that you were not old enough to be a soldier? Do you remember now?"
"Y—yes," answered Chris, with a strangled sob.
"But I suppose you thought that you knew better than I, and didn't tell me of your plan because you knew that you would not be allowed to carry it out. Was it not so?" he asked. Then as Chris nodded he went on: "I hope now that you see the consequences of your behaviour," he continued; "everyone's time wasted, an endless amount of unnecessary anxiety and trouble, and your Grandmother nearly ill. If ever anyone deserved a good punishment it is you."
At this point the little beggar, unable to keep back his tears any longer, buried his head in his Granny's lap and sobbed bitterly, and as if his heart would break; whilst for my part I went away. He had been very naughty, but I did not like to see him crying so bitterly. It made me sad.
It was about an hour later,—just lunch-time,—and I was walking up and down the gravelled terrace at the back of the house, when a little hand was slipped into mine, while a little voice remarked in an awe-struck tone:
"What do you think? Uncle Godfrey put me in the corner for half an hour—a whole half-hour!"
Chris spoke with much solemnity. Granny's punishments were of such a mild description, that this of Uncle Godfrey's, by comparison, appeared very heavy, and impressed upon him the grievousness of his offence.
"And he says I'm not to have no pudding for dinner," he continued with some pathos; "no pudding at all. Do you know what kind of pudding it is?"
"No, I don't," I answered smiling.
"'Cause Granny said I might have a roly-poly pudding soon," he said, "and I do hope it's not to-day. If it is bread-and-butter pudding I don't mind, as I don't like bread-and-butter pudding."
"I can't tell you what pudding it is," I repeated.
"Uncle Godfrey said I was a very naughty boy," he went on.
"So you were," I said, but mildly, and not with the decision the case demanded.
"I didn't want to frighten you, or my Granny, or anyone," he said humbly, with the effects of his uncle's scolding and punishment still fresh in his memory. "But I did want to be a soldier and fight; and Uncle Godfrey says I'm not one, and I never was one, and that the soldier was only laughing at me when he said I was. And I can't be a soldier for a long while—a very, very, very long while."
"Not that kind of soldier," I said, "but I know another kind of soldier that you can be."
"The Queen's soldier?" asked Chris eagerly.
"No, but the King's soldier," I replied. "You can be one of Christ's soldiers. Whenever you try hard to be good and obedient when you feel inclined to be naughty and wilful; whenever you try not to say the angry word, to think the unkind thought you would like to say, you would like to think; whenever you turn your back on what is mean and unmanly and follow what is true and noble; whenever you do this for His sake, then, Chris, you are fighting for Christ, you are Christ's soldier.
"But," I went on as I saw that I had gainedhis attention, "there is a great difference between these battles and the others that you were speaking of. In fighting for the Queen you have to be very brave and no coward, it is true. But you have the cheers of your countrymen to inspirit you. You know that your country is watching you, and that helps you to meet your enemies with courage. In these other battles, fought for Christ, there are no cheers to excite you, no one watching but God, and God only. For these fights must be fought silently, quite by yourself,—God your only Help,—or they are not worth the name of battles. But, by and by, on that silent battle-field, where so many struggles have been gone through, and so many hard victories won through the grace of God, the silence will at last be broken. It will be broken by a sound full of triumphant joy, too heavenly in its beauty for earthly ears to catch, but a sound that will make the angels in heaven rejoice, a sound of—"
I paused as I tried to find appropriate words for the thought that, half-formed, was in my mind, gazing as I did so, as if to seek inspiration, at the boughs of the elms near, swaying and bowing slowly to and fro in the wind.
"What?" said Chris, impatiently tugging at my dress. "What?"
"'The voice of a soul that goeth home'," I said, as the great poet's words came to me in all their beauty.
"It's the best thing; I should not propose it unless I were fully convinced that it is so."
Uncle Godfrey, standing on the hearth-rug in the drawing-room, his hands in his pockets, was speaking with his usual decision.
I, who had just entered, feeling that I was interrupting his conversation with Granny, turned to leave.
"Please, don't go, Miss Baggerley. We should like to have the benefit of your opinion," remarked Uncle Godfrey.
"Yes, stay, my dear. I should be glad to know what you think," said Granny.
So I remained.
"You tell her what we are talking about, Godfrey," she said.
"All right!" he answered. "Well, the subject under discussion is the advisability of sending Chris to be educated with my sister's little boy. She and her husband have just come home from India, and have taken a house for a time in Norfolk. In a letter my mother had from her this morning, she suggests the plan I have mentioned; in fact, she is most anxious that it should be arranged. I think myself that it is a capital idea,for it seems to me that it would do Chris all the good in the world to have the companionship of another child. He is a capital little chap, but I don't see how it can be good for him to have every whim and fancy attended to as he has at present, by my mother, by you, by everyone as far as I can see, except perhaps that excellent and depressing young woman, Briggs. Oh, I know what you would like to say; much that my mother has already said—that Chris is not easily spoilt, that he has such a good disposition, and so on. All of which I grant; but, nevertheless, I think it would be better for him in the end to have a little less attention given to him than he has at present. Besides, he would have the advantage of an excellent governess, who has been with my sister some time, and, according to her, is a paragon of a teacher. And that is not to be despised, it seems to me. Chris, of course, would always come to my mother for the holidays, so that she still would see a great deal of him. Now, frankly, don't you agree with my view of the case?"
"I suppose so," I answered, though I was conscious of speaking unwillingly, for I knew what it would cost Granny to give up the charge of her darling.
"Of course you do," he replied, "only you don't like to say so for the sake of my mother."
"The darling is very dear to me," said Granny,a little pathetically. "I only desire what is best for him."
"I know that, my dear mother," Uncle Godfrey said gently—he could speak very gently when he liked, in spite of all his decided ways,—"no one could doubt it."
No one spoke for a moment or two, and it was plain to see that a struggle was going on in Granny's mind.
"I don't want to persuade you against your judgment, mother," at last Uncle Godfrey said, still speaking very gently, even tenderly, and then we were silent again.
Then Granny said with an effort—an effort that plainly cost her much:
"You are right, my son; yes, you are right. I am getting too old to have the entire responsibility of the child, and, doubtless, it would be good, it would be more cheerful for him, to be with a little companion of his own age. Yes, it is better that he should go to Louisa."
And then she got up and left the room, as if, for the time, she could say no more. It was a hard trial for her, because love for Chris was as part of her life, and to part with him would be a wrench that neither Uncle Godfrey nor myself could fully comprehend, with all our desire to enter into her feelings. Yet I think that she had never loved him so truly as at that moment when she gave him up. For is not our love thegreatest when it is the most unselfish, when it is purified by self-sacrifice, as "gold that is tried in the fire"?
It was such a bright morning when the little beggar left us; a cold, crisp day in the beginning of October, the slight frost sprinkling the ground with a white powder that sparkled and glistened like diamonds in the autumn sun.
Uncle Godfrey had come up from Aldershot for the express purpose of taking him to his new home, which fact filled Chris with no little pride.
"Me and my Uncle Godfrey are going a long way together," he kept informing everyone. "He has left all his soldiers to come and take me. Isn't it kind of my Uncle Godfrey?" in a tone of devotion.
I imagine that had it been anyone else but his Uncle Godfrey it would have been a difficult matter to reconcile him to leave his Granny. As it was, he became inclined to be very tearful as the hour of departure drew near, and clung to her in a way that, whilst it touched and pleased her, made the thought of the parting more difficult to bear.
And now the little beggar, who for the last few minutes had been playing in a somewhat restless fashion with Uncle Godfrey, returning between whiles to Granny's side, was sent upstairs to have his hat put on.
Five minutes passed and he had not returned. Granny became impatient. Poor Granny! who grudged losing even a minute of her darling's presence when she knew that she was about to lose it for so long.
"My dear," she said to me, "will you kindly go and see if he is ready? The dog-cart will so soon be round."
Hastening upstairs, I went to the nursery to bring down the little beggar to rejoice her sight for the short period that remained before he left.
As I approached the open door I heard Briggs taking leave of him, and with more sentiment than was generally to be observed in the utterances of that dignified person.
"And you won't forget your Briggs?" she said, kissing him; "and you'll send her a letter sometimes?"
"A long, long letter; ever so long," promised Chris rashly. "And you've wroten down the place what you live at?"
"Yes, here it is," said Briggs, holding out an envelope and reading aloud as I entered:
"MissAmelia Briggs,6 Balaclava Villas,Upper Touting,London."
"And you'll write me a nice letter, won't you, Master Chris?"
"Nicer than ever you can think," he replied, as she kissed him again with something like emotion, and bade him good-bye.
"I'm sorry to leave Briggs," he said, as we went downstairs hand in hand; "but I am dreffully, dreffully sorry to leave my Granny."
"Will I never come back to her again?" he asked, wistfully.
"Why, of course you will," I said, encouragingly.
"But I don't want to go 'way from her," he remarked sadly.
"You'll be a good boy, though," I said, "and not cry, or you will make her unhappy."
"Yes, I'll be the goodest boy," he promised me fervently, "and I won't make my Granny unhappy; not a little, tiny bit."
But when he saw her looking so sad his resolution somewhat failed, and, standing by her side, he gazed up into her face with his great eyes full of tears—eyes like violets with the dew upon them.
Suddenly, however, he brightened up, and turned to leave the room.
"Hulloa! where are you off to?" cried Uncle Godfrey. "The dog-cart will be round in a minute, and you'll be nowhere to be found."
"I want to get something for my Granny; I want to get something very badly for her," he said eagerly as he paused; "and it's in mycoat, and it's outside, where I put it, with your greatcoat in the hall."
"Slightly involved," Uncle Godfrey remarked, laughing.
"What can the darling be bringing me?" Granny said, roused a little from the abstraction into which she had fallen.
She was not long left in doubt, for almost as she asked the question Chris returned, holding aloft a little, bright, red leather purse, the pride and joy of his heart. Opening it, he went back to Granny's side and showered its contents upon her lap—two halfpennies and four pennies, a sixpenny and a threepenny bit, and a bright farthing.
"It's all for you, my Granny, 'cause I'm going away," he said impulsively; "all for you! The golden farthing and everything?"
"No, no, my pet; I won't take it from you," answered Granny, much moved by this great gift.
"Yes, but you must, my Granny; it's all for you," he repeated, with a fleeting glance of regret at the red purse in its splendour.
"My darling, I won't take it all," she said, replacing the money in the purse, and putting it into his pocket—all save the "golden farthing", which she kept. "But, see, I will keep this as a keepsake from my own dear child."
"Yes, Granny; and you'll never spend it," Chris said seriously. "You'll keep it for always."
"For always, my Chris," she said tenderly, with a pathetic little tremble in her voice as she kissed him.
And now the dog-cart came round to the door, and we all went out into the hall.
Then, with a hug from me, and many a loving kiss from Granny as she clasped him in her arms, Chris was lifted up by the side of Uncle Godfrey and driven away.
"Good-bye! good-bye! good-bye!" he called out shrilly, looking back and waving his hand, till his little voice grew faint in the distance.
As for Granny, she stood still on the door-step, heedless of the keen morning air, with one hand shading her eyes from the sunlight, while the other grasped tightly Chris's parting gift—the "golden farthing".
She stood there gazing after the dog-cart till it was out of sight. Then she turned in silence and went back into the house.
It seemed as if all the sunshine and brightness had gone out of it with the departure of that little beggar!
Many years have passed since that summer's day when I found a little truant sobbing so bitterly by the roadside. Granny is a very old lady now, and my hair is becoming quite white. As for the little beggar himself, the ambition of his childhood is fulfilled, and he is one of the Queen'ssoldiers, having just passed into Sandhurst, a fact in which Granny takes an overwhelming pride. So overwhelming, that I really fancy if you were to ask her to name the greatest general of the future, she would have but one answer for you. Cannot you guess what that answer would be?
Transcriber's NotesThis title was published as the second half of the bookUnluckyby Caroline Austin (eBook #35653). Page numbers begin with 161.The publisher's name comes from the first half of the book, as does the illustration.Minor changes have been made to correct typesetters' errors; otherwise, every effort has been made to remain true to the author's words and intent.A table of contents has been added for the reader's convenience.Page202, "Baggerly" changed to "Baggerley" ("Perhaps Miss Baggerley would tell you").Page251, "Beggarly" changed to "Beggarley" ("Not even Miss Beggarley").
This title was published as the second half of the bookUnluckyby Caroline Austin (eBook #35653). Page numbers begin with 161.
The publisher's name comes from the first half of the book, as does the illustration.
Minor changes have been made to correct typesetters' errors; otherwise, every effort has been made to remain true to the author's words and intent.
A table of contents has been added for the reader's convenience.
Page202, "Baggerly" changed to "Baggerley" ("Perhaps Miss Baggerley would tell you").
Page251, "Beggarly" changed to "Beggarley" ("Not even Miss Beggarley").