Sally hesitated before she made her first move. Playing at trances was a new game to her, and she was in the dark in more ways than one. But the crisis was an imminent one, and she was vaguely conscious that none but bold measures would help her safely through it. Yet she approached her subject warily, unaware that Seth's accustomed eyes could plainly discern the working of every muscle in her face.
"I went off all of a sudden, didn't I?" was her first inquiry.
"You did, Sally," replied Seth, "without saying with your leave or by your leave."
"And you tried to bring me to."
"And couldn't."
"Right you are, Sally."
"Then you carried me down here."
"How do you know that?" asked Seth, so abruptly as to shake her nerves.
"You must have done," she said in feverish haste. "How could I be here, else? People don't walk in trances, do they? Joanna didn't walk when she was in a trance, did she?"
"Well, no," answered Seth, the corners of his eyelids wrinkling up with amusement. "I never heard that she did."
A sigh of relief escaped Sally's bosom at this confirmatory evidence, and was followed by a chuckle from Seth.
"It stands to reason, Sal, that if Joanna had walked, you'd have done the same."
"In course I should," said Sally innocently. "Did I go off like Joanna?"
"I should say there wasn't a pin to choose between you." A cunning smile played about Sally's lips. "You put somethink on my face."
"Water, Sal, to bring you to."
"But somethink else," said Sally, with a slight shudder, "somethink that crept and frightened me."
"You see, Sally, you were so bad, and wanted such a deal of bringing to, that I had to take the water from my aquarium----"
"What's that?"
"You'll know by-and-bye. There's fish in it, and all sorts of things, and when I dipped the cup in, out came a water-beetle. There isn't a bit of harm in the little creatures, but theydocreep! Now for the vision, Sally."
Sally puckered her eyebrows, and tightly interlaced her little fingers.
"It was dark and it was light," she slowly commenced. "Not both at once. That could hardly be--though we don't quite know what happens in trances."
"No, we don't, do we? It wasn't light and dark together. First it was dark, and then it was light. I couldn't see a wision in the dark, could I?"
"I should say not, Sal; but I never was in a trance, you know. I'm not one o' the prophesying sort."
"So itmustha' been light when it come. There was all sorts o' things flying about--birds, and angels, and spirits. It was splendid. Then all of a sudden a king comes to me done up in a bundle."
"Pharaoh," suggested Seth, in the midst of a quiet fit of laughter.
"Yes, Pharer, it was," said Sally, eagerly adopting the suggestion.
"Because that's the only old king you ever heard of."
"Yes. Well, Pharer come----"
"Stop a minute, Sal. What was he like?"
"Didn't you never see him?"
"I never set eyes on the old gentleman."
A deeper puckering of Sally's eyebrows, and a tighter interlacing of her little fingers.
"He was done up in a bundle, you know, and I didn't see much of him."
"Was he like the doll outside old Adam's rag and bone shop?"
"A little bit."
"Only he didn't have a black face,"
"No," said Sally, following the cues with heaving bosom.
"But his facewaspainted."
"In course it was."
"In stripes. Red, and yellow, and green."
"Yes, he looked so rum! And he had a big gold crown on his head."
"Ah," said Seth, in a tone of sly satisfaction, "now I can say I've seen Pharaoh if anybody asks me. Go on, Sal."
"Well, he come, and said----"
"Ho! ho! Sally! he spoke to you, did he?"
"Yes, he said a lot."
"Now," mused Seth, hugging himself in great enjoyment, "how did he speak?"
"With his tongue," replied Sally, with precocious sharpness.
"Yes, yes, with his tongue, of course. But in what language? It couldn't be Hebrew, because he hated the Jews, and wouldn't have lowered himself to it. Besides if he had, you wouldn't have understood him."
"Not in a trance?" asked Sally in a cunning tone.
"I should say," replied Seth very gravely, "not even in a trance."
"Why, then, he spoke what I'm speaking to you, and what you're speaking to me--jist the same. 'Git up, Sally,' he says, 'and come along o' me; I'm going to show you somethink.' I got up and went along of him."
"The people must have stared, Sal, to see you and Pharaoh walking together."
"We didn't mind that. We walks straight to the horspital, and there's father laying in bed. 'Shall I ever git better?' says father to Pharer. 'No,' says Pharer, 'you'll never git better. Do you hear, Sal? Father'll never git better.' Then we goes out of the horspital, me and Pharer, and walks miles and miles into the country, and we come to a big, big place with stone walls. 'Mother's in there, Sal,' says Pharer; and I peeps through and sees poor mother working and working."
"Was it a prison, then, that mother was in?"
"No, it was a workus. 'If you was to go to her,' says Pharer, she'd be turned away. She's got eighteen pound a year.' Is that a lot?" asked Sally, suddenly breaking off.
"It's a lot taken in a lump," replied Seth, upon whose face a more thoughtful expression was gathering, "and a year's a lot, too, Sally."
"Is three-and-sixpence a week a lot for a gal's keep?" asked Sally, pursuing her inquiries.
"What sort of a girl? One who would make herself handy?"
"Oh, yes; and do anythink, never mind what. Clean and scrub, and git up early and light the fire and go of errands----" Thus Sally breathlessly ran on.
"But this girl's so small--not strong enough to do all that."
"She'd git bigger, and stronger, and older, every day. And you don't know, oh, you don't know what she wouldn't do, if you wanted her to! And she'd be as good as gold."
"Then this girl's liable to fainting dead away, without notice----"
"She wouldn't do it!" cried Sally, beating her hands together and creeping closer to Seth; "she wouldn't do it, if you didn't want her to!"
"--And of falling into trances--"
"She'd never do so agin, this gal wouldn't, if you didn't want her to!"
"Three-and-sixpence wouldn't go far, Sal, but it's something. What next did Pharaoh say?"
"'She's got eighteen pound a year,' says Pharer, 'and she's been obliged to go away from you 'cause she's so poor, and couldn't git nothink to eat; but she's giving somebody three-and-sixpence a week for your keep.'"
"Ah, ah, Sally, now we're coming to it."
"After that, Pharer looks at baby----"
"Saying anything aboutherkeep, Sal?"
"Oh, no; there's no need to.Ikeepher, you know;Itake care ofher. I nurse her, and wash her, and dress her, and put her to bed, and she's no trouble to nobody."
"Not even to you, Sal, I suppose."
"Not to me--oh, no, not to me, 'cause I love her, and she's the beautifullest baby there ever was! Pharer looks at her, and says, 'When baby grows up, she'll be a lady, and 'll have fine clothes, and 'll give everybody money who's been good to her.' That's sure to come true, that is."
"Pharaoh says?"
"No,Isay. It's sure to come true. You mind, now! Whoever's good to baby'll be done good to."
"A good Christian sentiment, Sal. And then?"
"Then," said Sally abruptly, "Pharer goes away."
"Walks away?"
"No, flies away, and is swallowed up like. That's all of it."
And with her heart beating as fast as if she were in a high state of fever, Sally, whose hand was resting on Seth's knee, waited in the deepest anxiety to learn her fate. Seth put his hand down, and it touched Sally's face. He gave a start as he touched her cheek, which was wet with her tears, fast and silently flowing.
"Sally," he said, "you've got a brother."
"I'll tell you somethink," rejoined Sally quietly and solemnly; "but you mustn't tell him, or he'd beat me."
"I won't tell him, my child."
"I don't think," sobbed Sally, "as he's any good."
"Why?"
"It was him as made father ill, and him as made mother poor. And last night, when I was abed, pretending to be asleep, I sor him eating up all the bread and drinking up all the tea. And when he went away, mother cried and cried."
Many moments passed in silence. Then Seth rose, and lit a candle, Sally following his movements with undisguised anxiety.
"Look about you, Sal."
Sally gazed with longing, admiring eyes at the treasures of the cellar, which was a veritable Aladdin's cave in her sight. It was with difficulty she removed her eyes from the aquarium, which was something so entirely outside her experience as to make it a marvel indeed.
"Here's my bed, Sally; and here's my cupboard; and here's my frying-pan and saucepan and kettle, all clean and tidy." As he seemed to expect an answer, Sally nodded. "Now here," he continued, lifting a blanket which, hung on a line, divided off a portion of the cellar, "is a place where two children might sleep, supposing such an out and out-of-the-way circumstance should ever occur to Seth Dumbrick as taking two ready-made, mischievous girls----"
"Oh, no," interrupted Sally positively, "not mischievous. Good."
"You're not fit to judge. Supposing, I say, such an extraordinary and ridiculous circumstance were to occur to Seth Dumbrick as his taking two girls, one of 'em a baby----"
"Such a beauty!" again interrupted the irrepressible Sally. "Kiss him, baby."
She put baby's face to his, and, utterly confounded and unable to resist, Seth Dumbrick kissed a pair of lips for the first time for Heaven knows how many years.
"If I believed in the Bible," he muttered, "which I don't, it'd be almost like kissing that. Sally, will you stop here, quiet, while I go out a bit?"
"Yes," replied Sally joyfully.
"You won't move, you won't touch a thing?"
"No, I won't--I won't!"
"And you won't mind sitting in the dark?"
"N--no," said Sally, with a little shiver.
"One soon gets used to it."
"Iwould," said Sally, becoming suddenly brave.
"I can't afford to burn candles all day long. You won't touch the aquarium, or put your fingers in the water?"
"No--no; I'll never!"
"Becausemyfish bite, Sally."
"I won't move from here, Mr. Dumbrick," protested Sally, grouping mentally for some strong affirmation. "I hope I may never move at all if I do!"
"Very well; I sha'n't be gone long."
Seth Dumbrick went straight towards Mrs. Chester's lodgings. He met that good woman on his way, inquiring anxiously of her neighbours whether they had seen anything of her child.
"She's at my place," said Seth, "with her baby, and has been there ever so long."
"You've lifted a weight off my heart," said Mrs. Chester.
"I was afraid Sally was run over. I'll give it her when she comes home!"
"Home!" echoed Seth.
"Yes, home," repeated Mrs. Chester.
"For how long," asked Seth, "will it be a home for her?"
Mrs. Chester turned very white, and looked at Seth Dumbrick for an explanation.
"Mrs. Chester," he said with a curious hesitation, "what sort of a man do you consider me to be?"
"I don't know any harm of you, Mr. Dumbrick."
"That's neither one thing nor the other. It don't matter, though. I'd like to hear the rights of the story about Sally's baby, if you've no objection."
Mrs. Chester related what she knew, and Seth Dumbrick listened thoughtfully and attentively.
"And you've never since set eyes on the man who brought the child to your house?"
"Never before or since, Mr. Dumbrick."
"There's a mystery in it," mused Seth, "and I'm partial to mystery. Here we are at your place. May I come up?"
Without waiting for permission, he pushed his way upstairs, and entered Mrs. Chester's room. In the first glance he saw the state of poverty to which she was reduced. Unceremoniously he went to the cupboard and opened it; there was no food on the shelves. Then he turned to Mrs. Chester, and fixed his great grey eyes on her so piercingly that she began to grow frightened.
"You're a married woman. Where's your wedding-ring?"
She placed her left hand quickly behind her.
"I don't mean any harm. Where is it?"
"In pawn?"
"That's always the last thing to go, Mrs. Chester."
Weak and sick, she sank, panting, into a chair.
"Your husband's in the hospital?"
"Yes," she sighed.
"And you're going to take a situation in a workhouse?"
"Who told you?" cried Mrs. Chester, her tears beginning to flow.
"Some distance from here it is, and you'll get eighteen pound a year. And you don't mind giving three-and-sixpence a week to anyone who'll take care of Sally."
"I don't know where you found out all this," sobbed Mrs. Chester, "but it's true. I've been trying all the morning to get a place for Sally--she's a handy little thing, Mr. Dumbrick--but can't find one. Everybody's full enough of trouble as it is, without wishing for more. I don't blame 'em, I'm sure, but I feel that desperate that I'm fit to make away with myself. Do you think I'd part with my child if I could possibly help it?"
"I never had one," replied Seth gravely, "so I'm no judge. Mrs. Chester, I'm a lonely man, and have lived a lonely life. You know me and what I am. I'm never out of work, and I never intend to be, if I can help it. I don't set myself up as a good man, but I dare say I'd pass in a crowd. Do you see what I'm driving at?"
"Not exactly, Mr. Dumbrick."
"I've felt sometimes lately, when I've been alone in my cellar, as if I'd like some one to talk to, some creature like myself about me to look at. I'd as soon set fire to my place as take a woman in it, and a boy'd plague the life out of me. But a little girl, or a little girl and a baby, I wouldn't so much mind. She could make herself handy, and might grow into my ways. Now do you see what I'm driving at?"
"You mean that you'd take Sally, and keep her, if I paid you three-and-sixpence a week."
"Partly right and partly wrong. I mean that I've no objections to take Sally and the little creature as seems to be cast upon the world without a friend, and give 'em both their meals and a bed. So far you're right. But you're not as to the three-and-sixpence a week."
"Would you want more, Mr. Dumbrick?" asked Mrs. Chester imploringly.
"I've been reckoning up as I came along how much a year three-and-sixpence a week is, and I make it out to be more than nine pound. That's a big hole in eighteen pound. You wouldn't be able to save a shilling out of it."
"I don't want to; I only want to live. God help us! Poor peoplemustlive as well as rich."
"They've as much right to, certainly, but that's not to the point. This is. I'm not willing to take three-and-sixpence a week. I'll take half-a-crown."
"God bless you, Mr. Dumbrick! How shall I ever thank you?"
Seth made a wry face at the blessing.
"But I've got a bargain of another kind to make. There's Sally's baby. She comes too, of course, and we don't reckon her. She's thrown in, as a body might say--a kind of make-weight. Now Sally is your child, and I reckon you are fond of her."
Mrs. Chester sighed an eloquent assent.
"One of these fine days," continued Seth, "you might make your fortune sudden." (Mrs. Chester thought of her lovely lad and his lucky mole, and listened with greater interest.) "You might pick up a purse of money, or an old pauper might die, and when you ripped up her clothes you might find 'em stuffed with bank-notes. In that case you'd come to me and take Sally away."
"It ain't likely any of them things'll happen, Mr. Dumbrick."
"I've heard of stranger things. Now I go on again. I should by that time have got used to Sally, perhaps, and shouldn't like to part with her. That wouldn't matter to you. You'd take her. But there's the other.She'snot your child, and you've no claim on her."
"No more than you have."
"Very well, then. Now I make this bargain with you, Mrs. Chester. If ever anything should happen as'd make you want to take Sally away, you wouldn't take the baby away as well. She'd be mine, and you'd have no right to her. You understand?"
"Perfectly, and I'm quite agreeable. A mother's got enough to do with her own children, without being saddled with strange ones. Though this little one is a beautiful child, Mr. Dumbrick, and my heart warmed to her so that if I could afford it I'd be glad to keep her. God help those who've deserted her so cruelly!"
"Then it's a bargain, and I'll go and send Sally to you. You'd best keep the children with you till you go away. Then you can bring 'em to me, and make 'em over."
"You'll be kind to Sally, Mr. Dumbrick."
Seth rasped his chin with his horny hand. "As kind as it's in my nature to be; I can't promise more than that."
"And you won't mind her fainting away now and then; she'll get over it as she grows, I hope."
"I've had a sample, and I don't mind it much. To tell you the truth," he added grimly, "it amuses me."
Mrs. Chester looked doubtful; Sally's fainting dead away had not been an amusement to her, and she was fearful that Seth was disposed to make light of her child's misfortune; but the quaint smile which came to Seth's lips after his remark had so much of kindness in it that she was reassured.
"I can trust you, I think, Mr. Dumbrick."
"If I wasn't sure you could, I wouldn't have come to you," was his reply, and then he paused for a moment or two. "Mrs. Chester, I can spare you two shillings if you're in need of it."
This was sufficient evidence, and Mrs. Chester gratefully pressed his hand. Seth placed two shillings on the table, and walked off quickly.
That night everything was settled; Dr. Lyon advised Mrs. Chester not to delay, and she agreed to go to her situation on the following day. He spoke well of Seth Dumbrick also.
"He has a rough outside," said the sensible doctor, "but it covers a kernel of goodness, if I don't mistake. The strawberry, you know, Mrs. Chester, grows underneath the nettle."
"Yes, sir," replied Mrs. Chester, seeing but vaguely the application.
Mrs. Chester had no heart to bid farewell to her neighbours. She left Rosemary Lane almost by stealth, going first to Seth Dumbrick with the two children.
"You'd like to see my place, perhaps," said Seth, and led the way to his cellar.
Mrs. Chester was dismayed somewhat by the gloomy look of the apartment.
"It is very dark, Mr. Dumbrick."
"Not when one's accustomed to it," was the reply; "besides there's a bit o' light behind the cloud."
He went to the back, and opened a door which disclosed a flight of steps, leading up to a yard in the rear of the house. The sun happened to be shining brightly, and the light struggling in gave the cellar a more habitable appearance.
"I've sometimes thought of having a window let in," said Seth; "perhaps I'll do it after a bit. And there's nothing to be said against it at night."
In fact therewasan undiscovered window in the back wall, hidden by shutters. Seth seemed to wish not to make the bargain an attractive one in Mrs. Chester's eyes. She knelt before Sally, and kissed her and cried over her. "You're sorry I'm going to leave you, my pet--say you're sorry."
Sally required no prompting. She loved her mother, but her practical little wits had gauged the situation, and she had done the best she could in the circumstances. Seth, with delicate forethought, left the mother and the children alone, and mounted to his stall, where he continued his work of soling and heeling and patching. Presently, Mrs. Chester stood by his side. He walked with her down the street.
"Don't take on," he said; "I'll look after Sally, and you can always write to me here, if you've anything to say. I'm settled in Rosemary Lane for life. Goodbye; I wish you better days."
He left her in the company of her lovely lad, Ned, the cause of all her trouble. She was to take coach to the country, and her son accompanied her to the yard it started from, grumbling all the way at his hard lot; for now his mother was leaving him, he had no loving nature to impose upon.
"If ever you're in trouble, my dear boy," sobbed Mrs. Chester, "don't keep it from me."
"I won't," he replied, with much sincerity.
"And if ever you grow rich, Ned----"
The contemplation of this happy certainty in the future lightened her heart, and with kisses and tears she bade farewell to him and to the neighbourhood endeared to her in many ways, notwithstanding the hard fortune she had experienced there.
In the meantime Seth Dumbrick retraced his way to his stall, somewhat unsettled in his mind as to the wisdom of the step he had taken. In his cellar he found Sally very industriously washing up some dirty plates; comfortably propped on a chair was the treasure-baby. Seth glanced suspiciously round to note if anything which should not have been disturbed was out of its place; Sally's eyes followed his with sly satisfaction. She had finished washing the crockery, and was now ostentatiously wiping her bare arms, like a little old woman of sixty.
"I keep my eyes wide open," said Sally, "as wide as wide can be, and the things come out of the darkness to meet me. Jist look; I can walk all about, without touching a thing."
Sally brought this to proof by winding her way quickly about the dark room, round the table, in and out of the chairs, round the aquarium, and all with such precision and anxious desire to please as could not fail to elicit approval.
"You're a cunning little sinner," said Seth, "and I don't doubt that we shall get along pretty well together."
"Sally," said Seth Dumbrick, a fortnight afterwards; "I'm beginning to be bothered in my mind."
It was night. Seth was playing "patience" with a very old and very greasy pack of cards. Sally was doing her best to mend her baby's clothes; she was as yet but an indifferent workgirl with the needle. It was not an unpleasant sight to see her taking her stitches, with knitted brow, and pursed-up lips, as though the fate of an empire was in the balance every time she dug her needle in and drew it out again. She had commenced the battle of life very early, but she had put on her armour with great cheerfulness and contentment, and was perhaps at the present moment the happiest little girl in Rosemary Lane. Her baby was asleep on the ground, comfortably covered over.
"I'm beginning to be bothered in my mind," said Seth.
Sally, ready for the bestowal of sympathy, looked up from her work.
"About what?" she asked.
"Many things. That trance of yours, to begin with. It didn't go far enough. Now, I ask you, as a prophetess--do you consider it an out-and-out prophecy?"
The grave air he assumed would have deceived a much riper intellect than Sally's. She prepared to discuss the matter seriously.
"It all come true, Mr. Dumbrick."
"No doubt of that--here you are in proof of it, and there's your father in the hospital, and there's your mother managing the workhouse in the country. It was good enough as far as it went, but it has come to an end already, and there's no more to look forward to. That's what I call not satisfactory."
"No, Mr. Dumbrick?"
"No, Sally Chester. The spirits that came to Joanna when she went off that way beat Pharaoh hollow. He couldn't hold a candle to 'em."
Much distressed by this depreciatory criticism, Sally said:
"It was Pharer's first go, Mr. Dumbrick. Perhaps he wasn't quite up to the business."
For the life of him Seth could not repress a laugh.
"There's something in that, Sally. Practice makes perfect, sure. Now, you couldn't sole and heel a pair o' boots the first time of asking; but you'd manage it in a year or two, with plenty of teaching. But about those spirits of Joanna's; they told all sorts o' things about the future, and they were always at it. And Joanna lived to be an old woman, and to the last day of her life she kept trancing away. Now, you've only had one trance, Sally."
"Yes, Mr. Dumbrick," assented Sally, with a troubled mind, "only one."
"And it doesn't seem likely that you'll have another."
"Yes, it does--yes, it does. I've felt it coming on more than once."
"Howdoesit feel, Sally?" inquired Seth, with an open chuckle.
"A kind o' creepy like, and everything going round."
"That sounds well."
"What is it you want to know, Mr. Dumbrick?"
"Well, there's baby, Sally. She won't be a baby all her life. She'll grow up to be a woman--so will you."
Sally nodded, and listened with all her soul in her ears.
"She has no name except Baby, and it stands to reason that that won't do all along. We must find something else to call her by; it won't be fair to her otherwise, and she wouldn't thank us for it when she grows up. It'd never do to have her grow up ungrateful, and to fly at us for not giving her what everybody else has got."
"Oh! no--never, never! But she'll love us always--you'll see if she won't."
"Don't you set your mind too much on it. Perhaps our baby'll see somebody by-and-by that she'll love better than you or me, and then we shall go to the wall. We're like fiddles, Sally, and Nature's the fiddler, and plays on us."
Open-eyed, and mentally as well as physically wide awake, Sally listened without exactly understanding, but dimly conscious that something very fine was being propounded to her.
"There are not many strings in us, Sally, but, Lord! the number o' tunes that Nature plays on us! And we go through life dancing to 'em, or hobbling to 'em, as the case may be. As this little picture'll do, according to the kind of music that comes to her. As for what takes place when Nature's played her last tune on us, that's beyond you and me, Sally."
"Yes, Mr. Dumbrick," assented Sally, feeling it incumbent upon her to say something, but groping now in such dark depths that she saw no way out of them.
Seth's next utterances, however, brought a little light to her.
"In all that, there are certain things--not many--that we may fairly take credit for. You've got a big heart in a little body. I'd wager my cobbler's stall that I'm going to sit on in the clouds when your dream comes true--I'd wager that to a brass thimble that if you had only one bit o' bread, and you was hungry as you could be, you'd give it to baby, if she cried for it."
Two or three bright tears glistened in Sally's eyes, which Seth accepted as confirmation.
"Take credit for that, Sally."
"Thank you, Mr. Dumbrick," said Sally gratefully, satisfied with this reward of good words for good intentions.
"I'm going to take credit, too, Sally. I'm going to teach you and baby to read and write."
"O! Mr. Dumbrick!"
"That's as much as a real father could do. Reading's a grand thing, Sally. We've much to be thankful for. Be thankful, Sally."
"I am, Mr. Dumbrick, I am, oh, so much!"
"I don't like that mister, Sally."
"No?" questioned Sally, for ever on the alert to discover her guardian's likes or dislikes.
"It's too much like company manners. Now that we're comfortably settled we ought to be more sociable. Call me Dad, or Daddy, or Daddy Dumbrick. Your tongue'll soon get used to it."
"Yes, Mr.--Dad-dy Dumbrick."
Sally's tongue tripped so comically over the new terms that she laughed, and Seth grimly joined in the merriment.
"We soon get used to things, Sally. Once on a time we usedn't to live in houses."
"In what, then, Daddy Dumbrick?"
"In tents and forests and fields and that like."
"As the gipsies do," cried Sally. "I've seed 'em. Mother took me to a fair once."
"Now we live in garrets and cellars, and sweet-smelling habitations."
Sally looked dubious. Many of the houses round about Rosemary Lane were far from sweet-smelling, and she could not realise the advantage of the present over the past of which Seth was evidently boasting. To live in a tent in forest or field was a dream of Elysium to her, with flowers growing around her home and green grass waving. Too good for earth.
"Once on a time," continued Seth, "we couldn't read; now we can. Once on a time we weren't civilised; now we are. We've much more to be thankful for than we know of. This is the age of enlightenment, Sally, and the best thing I can do is to give you your first lesson."
Sally hastily put aside her work, and kneeling by baby's side stooped and kissed her. Seth, who had risen in search of a book, looked down upon the children.
"Don't you forget, Sally, what I said about you're going off in a trance. No, no, Sally!" he cried, putting his hand to his side to restrain his merriment; "not now. Don't you go fainting dead away now; we've got something else to do."
"I wasn't going to, Daddy," said Sally timorously, and with something like a blush on her thin, sallow face.
"Bravo, Sally; there's some lessons you know without being able to read--to tell the truth when it's necessary, and to tell the other thing when it's necessary. You little sinner, you! You've the gumption of twenty grown-up women in that little carcase of yours. Here's a book with large print. It belonged to my mother."
He brought forward a great heavy quarto with old broken clasps, and opened it.
"I shall read out loud the first few words and then you shall learn the letters one by one. Keep your eyes and your mind open and come closer."
So saying, Seth, taking the forefinger of Sally's right hand as a marker, read slowly the words, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."
Seth Dumbrick never raised his eyes from his work the next morning when Sally Chester, who had been standing silently by his side for full five minutes, suddenly said:
"Pharer come agin last night, Daddy."
"I thought he would, Sally."
"'Baby must have a name given to her,' says Pharer, and it's got to be done proper.' 'What name?' says I. 'I don't know,' says Pharer----"
"Not much of a spirit," murmured Seth; "not by any means what I should call a tiptop spirit."
"'There's only one man,' says Pharer," continued Sally, somewhat discomposed, "'as can give baby a proper name, and that man's Daddy Dumbrick.'"
"Oh, oh!" exclaimed Seth. "He knows my new title already."
"Spirits know everythink," observed Sally oracularly. "Then Pharer takes me downstairs. And it's night, and there's more than one candle alight; and the fish in the quarian is swimming about, wide awake, salamanders and all; and there's a party."
Seth gave a long, soft whistle. "That's a mistake, Sally. There couldn't be a party."
"There was," said Sally positively.
"Men and women?"
"No; boys and gals."
"Ah, ah! That's bad enough, but it's better than t'other."
"There was Jane Preedy, and Betsy Newbiggin, and Ann Taylor, and Jimmy Platt, and a lot more, all dressed out; and there was baby dressed out splendider than all of 'em put together, and there was me, and you."
"What was I doing?"
"You was giving baby a name. 'And mind,' says Pharer, baby's a little lady, and she's got to have a grand name, better than mine, or your'n, or anybody else's.'"
"When was this party given, Sally?"
"The party was given next Monday," replied Sally in utter defiance of all natural rules and laws, "next Monday as ever was."
"It must be done, I suppose," said Seth, with a sigh of comical resignation, "or Pharaoh'll never come to you again."
"Never," declared Sally.
"Then there's no help for it. You can ask all the little ragamuffins in the neighbourhood to the christening."
"O, Daddy, you are good--you are good!" and out of the depth of her gratitude Sally put her arms round Seth's neck, and kissed him half-a-dozen times without meeting with any opposition.
In good truth Seth was enjoying this new state of things, and would not have liked, now that he had tasted the sweets of companionship, to be compelled to relapse into his old ways. There was nothing to regret in his past life; he had never loved, and therefore had no melancholy remembrance to make the present bitter. He had contracted neither violent friendships nor violent enmities. He had never been wronged--which frequently leads a generous nature to misanthropy; he had never wronged--which often leads to meanness many a nature capable of higher development. Thus, having escaped rocks upon which other men are wrecked, or soured, or embittered for life, he found himself a middle-aged man, the tenderest chords of whose nature had never till now been touched.
Sally's kisses thrilled him tenderly. He did not return them, nor did he exhibit any feeling, but every pulse of his being responded to this mark of affection.
"Daddy," said Sally.
"Yes, Sal."
"You're sure?"
"About next Monday? Oh, yes. We'll have the christening."
"I want to tell you somethink."
"Out with it."
"I've got two shillings."
"Saved up in my frock. Feel 'em."
Seth felt them.
"Mother give 'em to me before she went away. I may spend 'em, mayn't I?"
"For the christening?"
"For baby."
"Well, no; I should say not. Here's two shillings more; spendthem, and keep yours."
"But I want to--I want to! It's my money, and I want to spend it on baby."
"You're an obstinate little sinner," said Seth, after some consideration, "but it appears to me that you've generally a reason for what you do. So do it. You can take my money as well, and spend it all if you like."
"We'll have a regular feast," said Sally gleefully.
Issuing forth the next morning, Sally commenced operations. The first acquaintance she met was Betsy Newbiggin. Betsy was pursuing her usual avocation of selling liquorice-water, at the rate of two teaspoonfuls for one pin. This industrious trader was a genius in her way, and displayed unusual qualifications for driving a good bargain. The bosom of her frock was half full of pins, and she trotted about with her breastplate as proud as an Indian of his trophy of scalps.
Not often did Betsy Newbiggin meet with her match in the way of trade, but she met with it this morning, in Sally. Our little sallow-faced mother had the natural cravings of a daughter of Eve for sweet things, and she cast a longing glance at Betsy's bottle of liquorice-water. Betsy observing the glance, scented a customer, and she carelessly shook the bottle two or three times, and removing the paper cork applied it to her tongue with an air of great enjoyment.
"Is it nice, Betsy?" inquired Sally anxiously.
"I should rather think it was," replied Betsy, placing the bottle close to Sally's nose; "smell it. How many pins have yer got?"
Sally passed her hand over the bosom of her frock, and found never a pin.
"Trust us," pleaded Sally.
Betsy laughed scornfully, and made a feint of moving away to more profitable pastures.
"Stop a bit, Betsy," cried Sally, "I want to tell you somethink. I live at Mr. Dumbrick's, you know--me and my baby. And, oh! it's such a place! There never was nothink like it. It's full of the most beautifullest things as ever was, and there's a large glass river with all sorts of fish a swimming about--wouldn't you like to see it?"
"I'd like to," said Betsy.
"It's better than a show, and Mr. Dumbrick he tells such stories--wouldn't you like to hear 'em?"
"I'd like to," repeated Betsy.
"Well, now," said Sally in unconscious imitation of Seth Dumbrick's manner of speaking, "I don't know. Perhaps I'll let you--perhaps I won't. Will you trust us two pins'orth?"
"Yes, I will, I will," exclaimed Betsy eagerly, and measured out four teaspoonfuls of the precious beverage, and gave full measure, mainly in consequence of Sally's watchful eyes being upon her. Long parleying took place thereafter between the cunning and wily Sally and the shrewd but in this instance over-reached Betsy, for before they parted, Sally had emptied every drop of liquorice-water in the bottle, and had besides wheedled Betsy out of twelve pins, to be returned at some remote and convenient period. But Betsy had her reward, in perspective, for she received the first invitation to the feast on Monday evening, in Seth's cellar, and she departed in a glow of triumph to boast of the invitation to her acquaintance. There is no person in the world, however insignificant or humble, who does not build for himself a dunghill upon which he delights to crow, to the exaltment of himself and the depreciation of his neighbours.
By noon all Sally's invitations were issued by word of mouth; and the news spreading with amazing rapidity, the excitement among the juvenile population of Rosemary Lane became most intense. Those who were invited walked about with pride and superiority in their bearing, and those who were not were proportionately humbled and vexed. The circumstance that Seth Dumbrick, the hermit, the crab, had consented to receive in his cave a certain number of children, and to give them a feast, was really an event in the neighbourhood, and even some of the grown-up people said they would like to go to the party.
The eventful evening arrived, and Seth, sitting in his stall, received his guests, and passed them down to Sally. The first to arrive was Betsy Newbiggin; then followed Ann Taylor, Jimmy Platt, Jane Preedy, Young Stumpy, and others, making in all a round dozen.
The cellar presented a splendid appearance. Everything was polished up, the hearth was whitened, the stove was blackened. There was not a speck on the glass of the aquarium; but this latter attraction was covered with a blanket. Seth, who, during the day, had refused to come into the dwelling-room, knowing that Sally was busy, and wished to give him a surprise, gazed around with satisfaction. His eyes meeting Sally's, which were watching him anxiously, he patted her approvingly on the shoulder, which caused her to colour with pleasure. When Seth made his appearance among his guests, they were all demurely seated on two benches which Sally had found in the back yard, and cleaned for the occasion. They were a very respectable party indeed, and behaved themselves quite genteelly. They were in holiday attire too, for, duly impressed with the importance of the event, they had taken pains to personally adorn themselves with any little oddment they could lay their hands on. True, that in some instances the will had to be taken for the deed; as in the case of Young Stumpy, the rents in whose garments would not admit of the entire concealment of his shirt, which peeped out in unwarrantable places, and who was much distressed by his companions slyly pulling at it, and further exposing him; and in the case of Jane Preedy, one of whose feet was buried in a very large old shoe, and the other squeezed into a boot too small to admit of lacing up. But for the matter of that, Sally Chester, if brought before a jury, would have been found guilty of rents, tatters, and incongruities in her attire; so busy had she been that--without inquiring as to whether she had the means--she had no time to make herself smart. On the table were displayed threepennyworth of oranges cut into very small pieces, threepennyworth of whitey-brown seedcakes, threepennyworth of the delectable cake known as the jumble, and threepennyworth of expressionless men and women and blatant cocks and hens fashioned out of the native gingerbread of the neighbourhood. Upon this splendid feast the eyes of the company were eagerly fixed, wandering occasionally away to the dark corners of the cellar and to the blanket which concealed the fish in the aquarium.
"Where's baby, Sally?" asked Seth.
"Not yet, please," said Sally imploringly. "May we commence, Daddy?"
"Yes."
The entertainment was opened by the drawing up of the curtain, or rather by the withdrawal of the blanket from the aquarium, and the sudden and brilliant display of fish swimming about caused a chorus of Oh's! of all shapes and sizes to issue from the throats of the delighted guests. Entering at once into the humour of the affair, Seth Dumbrick constituted himself showman, and proceeded to point out the different fish to the audience, who thronged around the lecturer, and listened open-mouthed to the wonderful things he told them. He took advantage, it must be confessed, of the limited knowledge of his hearers, and imposed upon them as the veriest mountebank would have done. Marvellous were the qualities of the water-beetles; dreadful were the stories he told of the voracious silver pike, saying how fortunate it was that there was not room for them to grow in the aquarium, or there was no telling what would occur; the gold and silver fish were real gold and silver--"Do you think I'd keep sham ones?" he asked, receiving vociferous vindication of his genuineness in the answers: "In course not, Mr. Dumbrick;" "Not you, Mr. Dumbrick;"--and as for the salamanders, which they gazed upon with a kind of horrible fascination, he explained how that fire wouldn't burn them, and expressed his opinion--with downward pointing finger--that they come from the place where wicked boys and girls went to, unless they saw the error of their ways, and repented in good time. So impressed with gloomy forebodings were the guests--all of whom, according to the oft-repeated testimony of their nearest relations, were as bad as bad could be--at this peroration to Seth Dumbrick's discourse, that it was found necessary to revive their sinking spirits. This was successfully accomplished by a circulation of the oranges and cakes, after discussing a portion of which they became the most defiant of young sinners, and figuratively snapped their fingers at fate. Then the principal feature of the evening was heralded by Sally, who, retiring into the recess which had been partitioned off for her sleeping apartment, returned in triumph with baby.
Holding Sally by the hand, she walked in like a little queen.
Of Sally's four shillings, one had been spent on the pleasures of the table; the remaining three had been expended on the child's dress. Heaven only knows what had influenced Sally in her whim, but from the moment she had obtained Seth Dumbrick's permission to hold the feast, she had run about from shop to shop, and street to street, hunting up cheap little bits of finery with which to deck her treasure for the important occasion. Small remnants of silk, bits of ribbon, faded artificial flowers, whatever her eye lighted on in rag and second-hand clothes' shops in the way of colour, Sally had purchased, cheapening and bargaining for them with the zeal and tact of a grown-up woman. The result was a great heap of odds and ends, which Sally had washed, and ironed, and pieced, and patched, with so much industry and ingenuity that her treasure-baby looked like a May-day Queen or an oddly-assorted rainbow. There was no harmony of design in the fashioning or arrangement of the dress, but the general effect was so pretty and unexpected, and the child's face, flushed with pleasure and excitement, was so beautiful, that her appearance in the cellar was like the revelation of a bright cloud, and Seth Dumbrick held his breath for a moment or two in wonder and admiration. The guests clapped their hands in unrestrained delight, and the child, standing in the midst of her admiring audience, received their applause with perfect grace--as though she was used to this sort of thing, and it was naturally her due. There was a rosy glow in her fair cheeks, her flaxen hair hung upon her shoulders like golden silk, her blue eyes sparkled with beauty. Sally stood by her side, like a little sallow gipsy. Seth drew the two children aside, and lifted them on his knees.
"Sally," he said, "you're a little wonder."
"No, no," protested Sally; "she is. I ain't nobody. That's the way I saw her in my dream. You've got to give her a name, you know."
"It's a puzzle, Sally. There's no name I'm acquainted with that would match her."
"But you've got to do it."
"Didn't Pharer say anything about it?"
Sally considered.
"Pharer's a king. She's good enough to be a queen."
"We've got one Queen, Sal, and those that have seen her say she's pretty, too. There's princesses and duchesses----"
"A duchess, a duchess!" cried Sally, clapping her hands. "If she can't be a queen, make her a duchess!"
"So be it, Sally. We'll call her a duchess. The Duchess of Rosemary Lane."
Sally slid off his knees, and brought a cup of water. "You must sprinkle her, you know. That's the way. Now no one can't call her nothink else."
"Ladies and gentlemen," said Seth, addressing the company with mock dignity, "allow me to present to you the Duchess of Rosemary Lane."