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Title: Mixed pickles
        A story for girls and boys

Author: Mrs. E. M. Field

Illustrator: T. Pym


        
Release date: July 31, 2026 [eBook #79239]

Language: English

Original publication: New York: A. L. Burt Company

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/79239

Credits: Al Haines


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MIXED PICKLES ***






[Frontispiece: Timidly walking up to the door Bryda tapped
gently.]




  MIXED PICKLES.

  A STORY FOR GIRLS AND BOYS.


  By MRS. E. M. FIELD.



  _WITH THIRTY-ONE ILLUSTRATIONS BY T. PYM._



  A. L. BURT COMPANY,
  PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK.




  CONTENTS.


  CHAPTER I.
  Idle Hands

  CHAPTER II.
  A Princess

  CHAPTER III.
  Another Terrible Scrape

  CHAPTER IV.
  What Can I Do?

  CHAPTER V.
  Old Roger

  CHAPTER VI.
  Uncle Jack's Story

  CHAPTER VII.
  Beppo

  CHAPTER VIII.
  The Rest of the Story

  CHAPTER IX.
  A Prince in Disguise

  CHAPTER X.
  Beppo's Friend

  CHAPTER XI.
  Dreadfully Frightened

  CHAPTER XII.
  Some Use for Moll

  CHAPTER XIII.
  More About Beppo

  CHAPTER XIV.
  Beppo in Trouble

  CHAPTER XV.
  Up a Tree

  CHAPTER XVI.
  Poor Moll

  CHAPTER XVII.
  Where Thieves Break Through

  CHAPTER XVIII.
  Friend, Go Up Higher




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.


"Pussy, Pussy! Come here, Puss."

Maurice Gray, with his queer little Scotch Terrier, Toby

Maurice fills the Syringe and sets to work

Timidly walking up to the door Bryda tapped gently

And where the water fell this Spring rose up

For a whole week there were Games

The Fairy came flying over the Town

"Little Boy," said Bryda shyly, "where do you live?"

"Our Father," Bryda prayed, "let me help Beppo."

Tom, who had now become a Poet

Bryda after looking around for Beppo, seized the Cat

Bryda and Beppo amuse themselves walking about the Field

Only one word, too--"Speranza."

Bryda appeared to have thrown the Reading Book to the other end of
the room

Bryda called to the old woman, who laughed and shook her fist

Bryda laughed, and then looked solemn




MIXED PICKLES.



CHAPTER I.

IDLE HANDS.

Bryda was very lonely!  Not because she was alone, for she was rather
fond of wandering off by herself, away from every one else, and
talking to herself and to the birds and flowers, and still more to
any little stream that came in her way.  But then to be alone because
you fancy it, and to be alone because there is no one to play with,
are two very different things, and the last was Bryda's case.

"If I had even a kitten," she said aloud, standing before the sundial
in her grandmother's old-fashioned garden, and looking at the shadow
that did not seem to move at all.  Bryda had read of King Hezekiah,
for whom the shadow moved backward; she wished it would move a little
forward for her, and bring tea time, after which meal she might go
and sit by the couch of her invalid cousin, Salome, who had soft
fingers that rested soothingly on her rumpled hair, and a soft low
voice that told pleasant stories pleasantly, and good long ones, too.

[Illustration: (Bryda standing at the sundial)]

"If I had only a kitten!"

Why, only yesterday, before Uncle Jack went away and took all the
brightness of the house with him, he said he thought there were
kittens in a loft over the stable, and he would try and catch one for
Bryda.  But he had gone off on a shooting expedition, and would not
be home for days and days.  And he did not know how lonely Bryda was.

You see her father and mother had gone abroad a fortnight before this
lonely day, and had left her in charge of grandfather and
grandmother.  They were very kind, but they were so old, and so fond
of going to sleep in their chairs with very grave books before them,
always open at the same place, that Bryda thought they looked more
like two wax figures from Madame Tussaud's--put, one on either side
of the fire in winter and of the big window in summer--than like real
people.

They had lived so long, probably, that they could not care much about
anything.  If you told any striking piece of news to grandmother she
only said, "Say it again, my dear.  I'm a stupid old woman.  Sit down
beside me, speak slowly, and always remember to wipe your shoes on
the mat."

If you had just rushed in full of the great news that the robin's
blue eggs in that dear little nest by the garden door were gone, and
four gaping, featherless darlings were there instead, you felt that
it was much worth while to try and make grandmother enter into the
delight of the surprise.  And when you had told her, she would only
say, "Very nice, my dear; very charming, I'm sure.  Now run out
again, and don't get freckled."  After which she would smooth down
her heavy watered-silk gown, and doze over the big grave book again.

And grandfather was worse.  He had long white hair, and a very long
white beard, and bushy white eyebrows; so that there were only two
round spots on each cheek bone, and a very narrow strip of
forehead--unless you included his nose--on which to kiss him, without
burying your face in white hair dusted with snuff.  For grandfather
took a great deal of snuff, and if you--that is, if Bryda--went to
talk to him, he would say, when he was awake enough to listen, "Yes,
yes, my dear, quite so, exactly so.  Give me a kiss, my dear; give me
a kiss.  I want a bite from those cherries on your cheeks."

And then came the difficulty of kissing grandfather (who did not like
to be refused) without kissing the white, snuff-scented beard, which
was only to be avoided by a sudden and rapid peck at the two rosy
circles on his cheeks, or the little bits of forehead between the
long locks.

When Bryda's mother went away her last words were:

"Be good to the grannies, my darling, and do all they tell you; and
don't forget father and mother."

Here the mother's voice trembled and broke, and she got very quickly
into the carriage.

Forget!  Oh, no, Bryda could not forget And she tried "to be good to
the grannies" by kissing grandfather whenever he wished, much as she
disliked the operation, and trying to remember all grandmother said
about dry shoes, and sitting in draughts, and eating slowly, and
putting on pinafores, and various other little matters we are all
familiar with.

Uncle Jack was quite different.  We shall hear more of him.  But
perhaps the house was a little too quiet for him; he was so often
away.

The dullness did not matter to Cousin Salome.  She lay in bed all the
morning, and was carefully wheeled into a little sunny sitting-room
in the afternoon; and there, when the pain was not too bad (for she
had hurt her back, and would never be well again), she was always
ready to welcome Bryda with that quiet smile on her white, loving
face, that was like moonlight on a sea that sings low and sadly on a
summer night.

Uncle Jack was away, and Cousin Salome worse, and the governess who
was to come and teach Bryda had not arrived; and so, as we have seen,
Bryda was very lonely, and very much in want of a kitten.  She looked
herself rather like a kitten that has got wet, for a kitten never
looks so forlorn as she did unless it is quite wet, and perhaps muddy
too.

But in two minutes after this bright idea had struck her Bryda looked
much like the same kitten when it has been dried by a nice warm fire,
and fed on creamy milk, and has licked its paws and washed its face,
and is ready for the next ball of wool that some one will be kind
enough to throw on the floor for it to play with.

Gathering some ripe summer pears, and hastily stuffing them into the
pockets of her pinafore, Bryda, hurried off to the stable.  It was
locked, but the key was in the door; it turned easily, and she found
herself as she entered rather near the heels of the fat old
carriage-horses, Gog and Magog.  But they would not kick; they were,
or seemed, as old and sleepy as their master and mistress.  Gog in
particular would really rather be stung by a horsefly than take any
particular trouble about brushing it away.  They were not animals
suited to Bryda's taste, however much grandmother might appreciate
their steady ways, They were like those horses of whom the little
girl in the poem could find nothing more interesting to tell than that

  "The tails of both hung down behind,
  Their shoes were on their feet."


And John, the coachman, was as fat, and old, and lazy as they were.
Altogether the family coach, when the dear old folks were in it, was
quite a curiosity.  They went for a short drive every day, one day
along one of the roads outside the lodge gates, and the next day
along the other, turn about, and always to the same distance, which
Uncle Jack called "going to there-and-back-again."  Only on Sunday
they went to church, which was a very short way indeed, only just
outside the gates in fact, and on that day they did not sleep in the
carriage as they did on the other six days.

But if Bryda was, as a treat, taken for a drive, it really was a
little dull.  Both the grannies went to sleep, and nodded so that
poor Bryda was really afraid their heads might come off; and John the
coachman looked as if he were asleep, and Gog and Magog went along at
such a slow, solemn trot that they might well be walking in their
sleep, too.

So Bryda was not much afraid that either of these grave old horses
would take the trouble to kick her.  But she had not the same
confidence in Uncle Jack's high-spirited hunter, Paddy, who lived in
a big stall with a bar at the end, called a loose box, in which he
could walk about; and now he put his handsome head with the white
star on the forehead over this bar, and looked at Bryda as much as to
say, "What business have you here?"

Next to Paddy's loose box there was a ladder, which went up through a
hole in the ceiling into the loft where hay was kept, and where Uncle
Jack said kittens lived.

Carefully closing the stable door, Bryda, with her heart certainly
beating unusually fast, climbed the ladder without stopping to think
what grandmother would say, and was soon up in the loft--a delightful
place, with a raftered roof, and little windows with sprays of Ivy
pushing their way in, as if to remind the scented hay that it once
grew outside and was called green grass.

It was a nice place! and, oh, joy! from a dark corner came the sound
Bryda longed for, a kitten's "mew!" It was not the voice of an
elderly cat, but the plaintive little "mew" of a kitten, and Bryda,
as she went toward the sound, could see a pair of very round, bright
eyes.  Carefully, not to frighten the little creature, she went
toward it; but, alas! kittens born in lofts are apt to be wild and
shy, and in spite of all her coaxing, "Pussy, pussy!  Come here,
puss!" the round, bright eyes went further off, and finally the
kitten took refuge in the darkest corner of all.  But Bryda was not
going to be beaten by a kitten.  Treading carefully and slowly, she
came nearer; one step more and she would reach the soft, furry thing.
Another moment, and it was in her arms; and Bryda, delighted, sat
down on a heap of hay, and hugged it, saying, "Now, kitty, let's
pretend!"

[Illustration: "Pussy, pussy!  Come here, puss!"]

What fun the games are that begin "Let's pretend!"  Why, one can be a
king, a queen, a judge, or a lord chancellor.  We can grow up in two
minutes into happy people, who do no lessons, and can order exactly
what they like for dinner every day, and need not go to bed at the
dreadfully early hour we young folks must.

Then, merely to eat a pear is so dull!  Grown people have parties to
amuse them at dinner, the very dogs growl and play with their bones,
and the cats act a little play over every mouse they catch.

So Bryda would be Queen Elizabeth seated on a throne, dining off
goose on that Michaelmas day when news came of the defeat of the
great Spanish Armada.  The kitten should be the messenger, a pear
should be the goose.  Bryda had just read this story in her English
history.  Hay makes a capital throne; Bryda piled one up, and had
just sat down with much dignity, when----

Have you ever heard people say, when something awkward happened, they
would like to go through the floor?  Poor Bryda did!  She suddenly
tumbled right through the scattered hay--right through the ceiling!

She was not really hurt, only a little bruised, after all; for she
had fallen into a sort of deep cage with strong wooden bars, into
which hay was pushed down from the loft, and the bottom of this cage
was inside Paddy's loose box, close to the manger.  So that the first
thing Bryda knew, when she recovered herself enough to look round,
was that Paddy was standing looking at her, and seemed very much
surprised, as well he might be, for little girls were not generally
kept in the loft along with the hay, or poked into his stall for him
to make his dinner off.

In fact, it is very likely that, if she had only known it, the big,
beautiful creature was much more afraid of her than she of him.

Indeed, she was very much afraid, and grew more and more frightened
as the horse, finding she did not move, came a few steps nearer, and
then began snuffing at her.  If she were to try to climb into the
loft again, which did not seem very easy, he might--he probably
would--bite her long black legs, she thought.

It would not be very easy to climb into the loft either; the cage was
so very deep.  What was the unfortunate child to do?  Paddy kept on
sniffing at her, the real reason being that he could smell the pears
in her pinafore pocket.  Bryda could smell them too, and a bright
idea struck her.  She remembered a fairy tale about a princess who
softened the hard heart of a lion by feeding him with cake.  Perhaps
this nice juicy fruit would have the same good effect on Paddy.
Perhaps, too, while he was eating it she might escape.  Cautiously
she drew one out, and it went into the horse's big mouth as a
gooseberry would have gone into her own, and was as quickly
swallowed.  That was a bad plan; he wanted more at once.  The next
she threw on the ground; and while Paddy stooped his sleek curved
neck to pick it up, she made a desperate effort to escape.

In vain!  Hardly had she risen from her cramped position and made a
struggle to get her hands up to the floor of the loft, when the
bright eyes and big mouth were back again, and dreadfully near her
legs!

"Oh, don't! _don't_!  Paddy!" cried Bryda.  "Here, you may eat all my
pears, but really I know I should not taste nice; so please don't
bite me."

The remaining pears were soon gone; but when they came to an end the
difficulty still remained, and Paddy could not be brought to see that
he could have no more simply because there were no more.  So he
sniffed and sniffed, poking his nose more and more between the bars,
and showing those dreadful teeth.  He only wanted pears; but Bryda
grew perfectly wild with fright, and finally, when Paddy actually
touched her hand with a hot nose, she could bear it no longer, but
gave first one wild shriek and then another, and another, till the
spirited horse, terrified by the noise, plunged about in the loose
box, adding still more to her dismay; and even Gog and Magog pricked
up their ears, and looked round, as if they would say, "Please don't
spoil our digestion by this dreadful screaming."

To Bryda's joy, however, the stable door opened, and old John came
tottering slowly in.

"Oh, John!  John!  save me!  Don't let me be eaten up!" implored
Bryda, as soon as she saw him; while Paddy became more composed, and
stopped prancing.

Old John scratched his head; that was natural.  Then he very
deliberately walked toward the ladder, muttering:

"Well, I'm blessed if this 'ere ain't the rummiest go as ever I see!"

Which, you will observe, was not the sort of English one finds in the
dictionaries; but then John was born before the days of school boards.

"Oh, John! make haste!" cried Bryda again.

But really it was a terribly long time before John climbed the
ladder, and gave his hands to the frightened child, who was soon safe
on the floor of the loft.

"Be you hurt, miss?" asked old John, looking at her as if she were a
china figure that might have lost an arm or a leg in the fall.

But Bryda was not hurt; only she trembled from head to foot, and,
after thanking John, turned away and walked with a grave face into
the garden again, and to the foot of the old sundial.

The shadow had only moved on half an hour.  Bryda tried to hold her
hand in such a way as to make another shadow, that should come
further over the dial.  But that was a bad imitation of the real
thing, and made her think of one evening when Uncle Jack had told
her, with such a serious face, to take a candle, and go to see the
time by the old sundial; how she had actually gone, and had only
remembered when she got there that the sun was in bed, and therefore
could not tell her what she wanted to know.

Up the pillar on which stood the dial two very large snails were
crawling--oh, so slowly!  They seemed to go even more slowly than the
long hot hours.

How amusing it would be to make them run, or rather crawl races!
Bryda gathered a nice fresh leaf, and put it at one edge of the dial.
Then she startled the two snails at the ether end, and for the next
hour or so was perfectly happy watching them, and starting them again
and again.

But at the end of that time the biggest and fattest snail gave up the
game in disgust, finding he never could enjoy his leaf quietly when
he _had_ got it, because a giant hand always came, and would put him
back at the starting-place.

So he drew in his horns first, and then went bodily into his house,
which those gentlemen conveniently carry on their backs.  There he
sulked, and would come out no more; so Bryda threw him into a
cabbage-bed, and went indoors.

Bryda had so many funny ways of amusing herself that Uncle Jack, who
was very fond of making jokes, declared she "lived in a jar of mixed
pickles."  Indeed, these same amusements often ended by becoming
small scrapes, which he called Bryda's pickles; and we shall see that
they were of all sorts, and really "mixed."

None are very wise at eight years old, and many of us are, like my
little Bryda, very anxious to do right and be of some use in the
world.  So we will follow her as she goes into the house.




CHAPTER II.

A PRINCESS.

Cousin Salome would see her now, and so Bryda went to the invalid's
room.

"You look very miserable, darling," said the soft voice
compassionately, as Bryda, after kissing her cousin, stood looking
dolefully out of the window.

"I am very miserable, Cousin Salome," she answered, feeling that she
had good cause for misery.

"Very miserable, when you can run about and be out of doors with the
sunshine and the birds and the flowers!  There must be something very
bad the matter.  Come and tell me all about it."

Bryda knelt by the couch, a little ashamed of herself.  Cousin Salome
might well be miserable, so ill that she could never again hope to
walk in the sunny, scented garden.

"It's easy for you to be good, I suppose, cousin," she said.  "You
lie here all day, and don't find any mischief to get into."

The last words were said as if mischief was a sort of thing that came
to you, and asked you to get into it--in the same way as roast pigs
run about in the fairy country, holding out a knife and fork and
crying, "Eat me, do! please!"

"So mischief is the cause of the great misery!" said Cousin Salome,
smiling, and drawing the little girl nearer to her.  "Tell me what
was the last piece of mischief."

Bryda told all about her adventure with Paddy, and ended:

"Oh, Cousin Salome, I've nothing to do!"

"That's the beginning of all mischief, I am afraid, darling.  Do bees
and birds get into mischief?  Not they, they are too busy."

"Well, I would make honey or a nest if I knew how," said Bryda,
laughing.  "If I could paint a picture like this, I should be happy."

Cousin Salome had been painting.  She could only do a little at a
time and that with difficulty; but she had drawn a very beautiful
figure of a young girl in a rich, old-fashioned dress, sitting by an
open window, through which could be seen a great plain and a large
town some way off.  The girl's face was full of wonder, and rather
sad, and she looked away at the sunset sky, as if she were thinking
of something very puzzling.  Bryda took up the picture and looked at
it.

"That is Princess Isabel of Montenaro; she is doing what you are
doing now, Bryda."

"What I am doing, cousin?"

"Yes; wondering what she ought to do.  Do you see the town beyond the
green park?  That was her father's capital, and a dreadful sickness
broke out there, so that people died by hundreds.  But the king was a
hard-hearted man, and spent the days in feasting and hunting, and
paid no heed to the people's sufferings."

"Oh, do tell me the story!" cried Bryda eagerly.

Cousin Salome smiled.

"The story, as I have it, is in verse.  You would not like that,
Bryda?"

"Oh, yes, yes!  Please read it."

"Can't you read it yourself?" asked Salome slyly.

"Oh, _no!_" with great energy.  "Reading is quite different from
being read to.  Why, the story _tastes_ quite ten times nicer when
you listen to it!"

So Cousin Salome opened a book that lay near, and began to read in
her gentle, tired voice, the story of the little picture she had
painted of the Princess Isabel.

The story was all in verse, and it was a little hard for Bryda to
understand; but it told how the princess could not bear to know that
others were suffering without trying to help them.  So, while the
sounds of her father's noisy feast came up into her quiet room,
Princess Isabel rose up, took off her fine dress and her jewels, and
dressed herself very simply.  Then, followed only by two of her
ladies, who were unselfish like herself, Isabel went down on foot to
the plague-stricken city, and there remained, nursing the sick and
caring for the poor, till the dreadful plague was at last gone.
Meantime the king thought he could forget all about it.  and spent
his time in hunting and feasting; but the pestilence came even into
his palace, and he and many of his gay court died.

Isabel was not touched by it; and when the sad time was over she
remained in the city working for the poor people, and helping them
till she died, never thinking of her own comfort.  So the people,
after she was dead, loved to call her Saint Isabel.

"Thank you," said Bryda, and drew a long breath when the story was
finished.  She had perhaps not understood it all, but one thing was
clear.

"The princess was never idle, Cousin Salome.  So I expect she never
got into mischief.  But I don't think it was nice for her to have no
playtime."

"She could wait for her playtime, dear," answered Cousin Salome
gently.  "She would enjoy it all the more, perhaps, because she had
worked so hard."

The sick lady turned a little and looked out at the quiet evening.
Noisy rooks were flying home to roost, meek cows slowly walking off
to be milked; on a large tree a peacock and his two wives were
settling themselves for sleep.

Bryda looked out of the window, too.

"I think the stars are afraid of the great big sun, Cousin Salome.
Do you see the way they first poke out their heads, and look to see
if he is really gone, and then come right out to do their little
shining?"

Cousin Salome laughed, and the deep lines that sickness had written
seemed to grow fainter, and make her younger and rounder.

"Their little worktime is just beginning.  They look as if they came
out smiling, with clean bright faces, ready to do as they are bidden."

"Poor Cousin Salome!" said Bryda, stroking the thin white hand that
lay weak and idle on the soft coverings.  "You can't work or play
either.  You must be very unhappy.  I should be."

"When I was your age, darling, I built myself grand castles in the
air.  Oh, how many nice things I meant to do when I grew up!  But I
was given a different sort of work, a much harder one to me, dear
child--the work of patiently doing nothing."

Bryda looked sorely puzzled.

"Never mind," went on Cousin Salome.  "You are not set to that work,
Bryda, nor to a great work like Princess Isabel's.  Just now you will
find there are plenty of little works ready for you to do--little
crumbs of which to make a great loaf."

"Picking up grannie's stitches when she drops them?  asked Bryda.
Grandmother's knitting was often in that sort of state.

"That may be one thing.  They are plenty more.  Shall I tell you an
old German story, about the use of little things?

"Once upon a time some people lived in a plain, at the edge of which
there was the sea.  They lived here long and happily; but one sad day
the sea began to rise and overflow the plain, creeping every day a
little nearer the prosperous village.

"So the people were sorely frightened, and tried to build earthworks;
but the sea washed away at night what they had done in the day.

"These were days very long ago, when, according to the old stories,
God would answer men from heaven when they called to Him.

[Illustration: (Bryda and Salome)]

"So the people prayed and asked God to send them His great angels,
that they might make hills for them to protect their homes and fields
from the terrible waters.

"But God answered, 'My angels have already their work; they cannot
help you in this.  But to-morrow, at sunrise, I will send to you an
army of My laborers; they shall make you sand-hills.'

"So the villagers were very glad, and next morning they rose early,
before the sun, wondering what sort of laborers these would be.

"'Perhaps the happy spirits of our fathers will come back to help us;
perhaps men from the south country--a kind and friendly people--will
be sent to work for us.  Perhaps----'

"But all their wonder was in vain, and it was changed to surprise and
dismay when, as the sun rose, they saw coming swiftly from the east
an army of--what do you think, Bryda?"

"Lions and tigers?" asked Bryda, with wide-open eyes.  "Elephants?
People?  Giants?"

"No, indeed; neither great, strong animals, nor clever men, but
hundreds and hundreds and thousands of ants!"

"Ants, cousin?  What use would they be?"

"You shall hear.  Each ant carried one grain, or what seemed to be
one grain, of sand.  On and on they came, and the ground was quite
black with their hosts.  The people looked, and gradually their
murmurs grew to one great roar of discontent.  But God's little
laborers paid no attention.  They had their Master's will to do, and
so long as that was done they cared for neither the praise nor the
blame of His other creatures.  So all day long they worked, each
little ant carrying his little load; and when the sun set there was a
great line of sandhills, so high that no waves could wash over them,
so thick that no storm could break them down, between the happy
villagers and the sea."

"Then the people stopped grumbling, I suppose."

"We will hope so.  And perhaps they learned that God can use the
smallest things to do His work with.  The little ants were as useful
in their way as the noble, unselfish Princess Isabel.  Now, dear, I
am getting very tired; will you sit quietly and look at pictures, or
run away and see the grannies?"

Bryda chose the pictures, and sat as still as a mouse in the window,
looking first at a picture, and then out of the window, and saying to
herself that she, too, would try to be of some use.




CHAPTER III.

ANOTHER DREADFUL SCRAPE.

The next morning Bryda was awakened from her pleasant morning sleep
by a strange sound.  Her window was partly open, but something struck
against the upper sash; it was not a bird that had lost its way, nor
a wasp come to look for jam, for as Bryda raised her head something
that could only be a handful of light gravel or shot struck the
window again, and at the same time a clear, shrill whistle sounded
outside.

Bryda hastily sprang up.  One does not care much about dress at nine
years old, so in white nightdress and dark twisted hair she
fearlessly put her head out of the window, and saw, to her delight,
her cousin, Maurice Gray, a boy some two years younger than herself,
with his queer, ugly little Scotch terrier, Toby, standing on the
lawn.  She need not be sad for want of a playmate to-day.

[Illustration: Maurice Gray with his queer little Scotch terrier
Toby.]

"Get up and dress!" cried Maurice.  "Aren't you ashamed, my Lady
Lie-in-bed?  Come out directly!"

Bryda did not need a second invitation.  A very short time indeed
passed before she was by Maurice's side.

His father had brought him over, he said; his father wanted to see
grandfather about some business, so he had started off very early.
Maurice was dreadfully hungry, and, as the grannies never breakfasted
till ten, he and Bryda each got a thick slice of bread and jam from
the good-natured cook, and then went off to the garden, Bryda running
races with Toby, who mostly had the best of it.  You see he had four
legs to Bryda's two.

They went to the vinery, and acted a little play, which, however,
wanted a few more actors sadly.  It was so puzzling for Bryda to be
both the imprisoned princess and the ogre at once; and when Maurice,
the valiant knight, slew Toby for a dragon, and stepped over his
corpse (or would have done, if Toby had been a little more dead, and
not run away every other minute), it got really puzzling, and it was
well that the breakfast-bell rang at that moment.

Breakfast was rather a long, dull affair.  Uncle James, Maurice's
father, explained to grandfather a great deal about a drainage
scheme; and grandmother, every five minutes, asked her maid Martha,
who stood behind her chair, to tell her what it was all about, which
Martha had to do in very loud whispers over and over again.

Maurice and Bryda were very glad to run out again, with special
directions from grandmother to keep off wet grass, and not get into
mischief.  This, they thought, could not possibly happen.  This time
they rambled into the farmyard.  Bryda would not look for more
kittens, but tried to make friends with some small balls of fluff,
which meant some day to be turkeys.  At one corner of the yard was a
deep tank, or little pond, full of a dark brown, rather thick fluid,
which was used in the garden and fields, and had a great effect in
the way of making things grow.  Bryda and her cousin stood looking at
it.

"I declare," said Bryda, "it's like the Styx!"

"I don't see any sticks," said ignorant Maurice, who had never
learned that the old heathens believed the souls of dead people went
in a ferryboat across a dark river called the Styx, and that the old
man who rowed the boat was called Charon.

Bryda thought it would be capital fun to act this little scene.
Certainly the treacle-colored stuff in the pool looked nasty enough
to do very well for this dark river.

As to Maurice, he was younger than his cousin, and when they were
together she always invented the games, although he had been to
school already, and thought girls generally were very little use.

So when Bryda explained what she wanted to do, he only said that he
did not know how to act a story that he had never heard; to which
Bryda only answered quietly, and as if it were a fact no one could
think of doubting for a moment, "You don't know anything about
anything, Maurice.  Sit down there--no! not on a cabbage, but on the
wheelbarrow--and I will tell you all about it."

So she told him the story, in the middle of which the wheelbarrow
upset, because Maurice laughed.  So he sat on a log of wood, and
Bryda picked up the wheelbarrow, got into it, and began in the words
of one of her lesson-books, with a little alteration to suit the
occasion.

"Friend!  Roman!  Countryman! lend me your ears!  I am Charon----"

"What?" asked Maurice.

"Don't spoil my speech!  You may only say 'Hear, hear!' as they do in
Parliament."

"But suppose I don't want to hear?"

Bryda had no notion of what they would do under such unlikely
circumstances; so, after thinking a little, she merely said, "Don't
be silly, Maurice!"  And that sort of answer puts an end to any
argument quite easily.

"This is my dog Cerberus, with three heads," went on Bryda, pointing
to Toby.

"My! what a lot of bones he would eat!" said his master.

Bryda suddenly jumped down from her rather unsteady pulpit.

"Oh, we _will_ have fun!  Here, Maurice, put on my white pinafore.
You shall be a ghost, and I will get into the tub with my dog
Cerberus, and ferry you over the river," she said.

"It won't hold two," said Maurice, looking rather doubtfully at the
rotten tub which Bryda pushed into the filthy waters, making a splash
and a most horrible smell as it went in.

"Oh, ghosts don't want much room!  Now, Cerberus, in you go!" and in
the poor dog went, hastily and ungracefully; being, in fact, thrown
in head foremost.

After one howl he resigned himself, and lay down at the bottom of the
tub, into which unsteady boat Bryda, armed with her own small spade,
followed with Maurice's help.

Having balanced herself by crouching down, so as to bring the center
of gravity to the right place, she proceeded to paddle, or, as she
called it, to row with the little wooden spade, splashing a good
deal, and, of course, making the tub turn round and round, and
wriggle very uncomfortably in the pool.

[Illustration: (Bryda floating in the tub)]

"Well, it doesn't matter," said Charon, giving up in despair, and
looking very red in the face.  "We can pretend I crossed the Styx to
fetch you.  Now I must speak to the soul in Latin, because, of
course, Charon and Cerberus talked Latin always."

"I suppose Cerberus barked in Latin--all three mouths at once," said
Maurice; "what a horrid row it must have been!"

"Now talk away," said Bryda.

"But we don't know Latin; I've only just begun at _hic, hoec, hoc_."

"That doesn't matter; we must make it up, of course.  If we put 'us'
or 'o' at the end of every word it will sound exactly like the stuff
Cousin Ronald learns.  Now: Poor-us soul-us, do-us you-us want-o to
cross over-o?"

"Yes-o," replied Maurice promptly.

"Then-us come-o--oh! oh!" screamed Bryda, making the last word very
long indeed; for she trod on the one tail of the dog Cerberus,
causing that remarkable animal to jump up howling.  Charon's
ferryboat was not built to allow of athletic sports on board, so it
went over, and Bryda went in.

Oh, dear! what word can describe the filthy mess into which Bryda was
plunged up to her waist! the smell of it, and the chill, horrible
feeling!  Fortunately, she had just taken Maurice's hand, to help in
"the soul," who indeed felt very lucky to escape such a voyage!
Maurice was able to help her, but, soaked to the waist and ready to
cry, she scrambled up to dry land.

By way of mending matters, the dog Cerberus, who may be supposed to
have become Toby again, had gone in altogether, and was rather
pleased with himself.  So he came and had a good shake close to
Bryda, so as to splash all the rest of her small person, and then ran
round and round, expressing his delight by all sorts of queer noises.

But, oh! here was a mess!  And this after the trouble of yesterday,
and all Bryda's good resolutions!  It was too dreadful, and tears
came fast to her eyes.

But kind Maurice, instead of laughing, pitied her.  "Don't cry," he
said; "can't you wash?"

"I might _run_," said Bryda dolefully, remembering what dreadful
things happened to frocks that "ran."

"That stuff might run off," said Maurice; "come on."

And she followed meekly to the nearest greenhouse, where was a large
tub of fresh water, and beside it a big squirt or syringe used for
watering plants high up in the greenhouse.

"Oh, Maurice dear, I never will call you stupid again!" cried Bryda,
delighted, as Maurice filled the syringe and set to work upon her.
What fun that was!  It was almost worth the fright of that horrid
splash, and almost--not quite, perhaps--worth the disgrace Bryda
would certainly be in with nurse.  Such peals of laughter followed
each shower that the quiet cows in the fields beyond lifted up their
great heavy heads, and stared with brown eyes of mild astonishment.

[Illustration: Maurice filled the syringe and set to work.]

Can you imagine the sort of figure Bryda was when grandmother came
out in her wheel-chair to take a turn in the sunshine?  Soaked from
head to foot; streams of clean water, and others of the horribly
smelling stuff into which she had plunged, pouring off her in all
directions!  She did indeed look a miserable little guilty thing,
hanging her head while grandmother looked at her through her gold
eyeglass, evidently so surprised and shocked that she could find no
words for a few minutes, and at last could only tell her she must
never! never! never! do such dreadful things again.  If she did, the
consequences would be

* * * * * *

This row of stars must stand for those dreadful consequences, for
Bryda never heard them!  Uncle James and grandfather had come up by
this time, and she fled, as fast as wet, clinging clothes would let
her, to the house.  It was "out of the frying-pan into the fire,"
though, for nurse's wrath was really something too dreadful; and the
way in which she ended, by saying that she supposed Miss Bryda would
like better to make mud pies in the streets than to play with other
Christians, hurt the child's feelings dreadfully.  I am sorry to say
she walked out of the nursery with damp, smooth hair and a clean
frock, but with her head so very much in the air that her namesake,
Saint Bride, or Bridget, or Bryda, would have been quite shocked.

"You see, Cousin Salome," she said afterward, "it was such a dose of
disgraces, and I meant to be so wise, and clever, and useful."

"Did you _ask_ to be made wise, and clever, and useful?" asked Salome
gently.

Bryda hung her head.  She had forgotten that.  I am afraid she
dressed so quickly in the morning to join Maurice that she never
remembered to ask the Helper of the helpless to make her what she
would like to be.

"I have been so miserable, Cousin Salome," she added; "I don't
believe Mary, Queen of Scots, could have been more wretched if she
had had her head cut off three times running."

How this was to be managed did not seem to strike Bryda as puzzling.
She and Maurice had so often acted the execution of Mary of Scotland,
with an armchair for the block, and an umbrella for an ax, that they
were quite used to the queen having her head cut off very often
without minding it in the least, or being any the worse for it
afterward.

But, certainly, it is very tiresome when our most amusing games end
in some mischief that we never dreamed of doing!  It was not so very
long before this dreadful accident in the tub that Bryda, who had
been reading English history, told Maurice they would act King Canute
and his courtiers on the seashore.

So she put two chairs, and collected all the water she could from
every jug and water-bottle she could find, so as nearly to fill a
bath placed in front of the two chairs on which she and Maurice sat.

"So they put chairs close by the seashore as the tide came in,"
related Bryda, "and the little waves came nearer and nearer.  And the
courtiers said, 'O king, let us move a little higher up.'  But Canute
said, 'Why should we?  Did you not say I was such a great king that
no doubt even the sea would obey me?'  And the courtiers held their
stupid tongues, for they knew very well that they had said so.  But
the tide kept on coming, and presently the courtiers got up and ran
away, for the water was halfway up the legs of their chairs, and they
had already been sitting with their knees up to their noses."

But here Bryda, trying to get herself into this graceful position,
lost her balance, and rolled off her chair, falling on the edge of
the bath; which, of course, upset, and made a higher tide in the
nursery than had ever been seen there before, for the water flowed in
every direction, and the children, ashamed and frightened though they
were, could not help laughing at the way in which a pair of Bryda's
shoes floated about like little canoes, till one that had a hole at
the side turned over and went down.

This happened at Bryda's own home, before her father and mother went
away.  Mother was not pleased, of course; but still she was not quite
so dreadfully shocked as the grannies were at the adventure in the
old tub.




CHAPTER IV.

WHAT CAN I DO?

It was in a penitent frame of mind that Bryda awoke on Sunday
morning.  She would be really good and keep out of mischief all day
long.

Cousin Salome was better this morning, and Bryda went in to see her
after breakfast.

"No, dear, I cannot go to church," she said, when Bryda asked if she
would go that morning; "but I dare say church will come to me.  I
shall read to myself, and think of all the people all over the world
who are saying the same words of prayer, till my little room seems to
grow into a piece of a great church."  And Salome's white, thin face
grew so bright and sweet that Bryda thought it looked like an angel's
face in a picture she had seen.

The idea helped her to sit much more still than usual in the old
family coach, opposite the two dear old grannies.

Grandfather was a very polite old gentleman, and thought people
nowadays too free and easy.  Especially he held that no gentleman
ever ought to drive with ladies with his hat on; so, as soon as he
got into the carriage, he always took off his very well brushed tall
hat, and fixed it by the brim in two ribbons fastened for the purpose
along the carriage ceiling.

Grandmother always wore a bonnet of the shape that was in fashion
when she was young, a curious coal-scuttle affair, which generally
set Bryda wondering how the wrinkled old face looked when its pink
cheeks were round, and whether, if she were to go to work with a
piece of india-rubber, she could rub out the deep lines and get the
young look back again.

Grandmother's eyes were dim, and she liked to have the lessons and
the hymns found for her.  Bryda sometimes did not care to do this;
because, if the hymn were a short one, it was sometimes half over
before she had found her own place, and was able to join, as she
dearly liked to do, in the singing.

But to-day she really did want to be of use, so she did this small
duty cheerfully, and was rewarded by the happy way in which the old
lady smiled and nodded over the big printed book.

The sermon seemed to have to do, in a most curious way, with the very
things of which Bryda had been thinking, and she quite started when
the rector's voice said suddenly, "Nothing to do!" and there stopped.
"Nothing to do," he said, "when the whole world is full of things
that want doing!  The harvest ripe, but the laborers idle!  The
people hungry, and those who have the loaves and fishes keeping
them--wasted, unused!"

The clergyman went on to speak of works that men and women might do,
and Bryda nestled close against grandfather's shoulder and thought
sadly, "When I am grown up I may be of some use, but what a long time
off that is!"  But presently she looked up again very brightly as the
kind old rector went on:

"And now, what shall I say to the little ones?  Just this, that the
Father needs them quite as much as their elders.  They may not be
able to do great works, to reap the harvest field, but they may help
with cords of love to bind the sheaves; they may glean the scattered
ears, and make a little sheaf of good corn.  The Lord took a "few
small fishes" to serve His great purpose; He will take little hands
and feet and hearts, and make them do His will.  Only the little ones
must be _willing_."

Yes!  But he had not told Bryda what she might do, and how to set
about doing the Lord's will seemed to her very puzzling.

She wondered about it the whole way home, and made a little plan,
which she determined to carry out at once after luncheon.  When
grown-up people were very good, Bryda knew that they were fond of
caring for the poor, and that then they generally carried soup to
those who were sick, and read the Bible aloud in cottages.  In her
own town home she had never been into the houses of the poor at all;
indeed, these houses were so hidden away behind the handsome streets
in which the rich lived, that she hardly knew there were such places.
But here, in the little village outside grandfather's lodge gates,
she knew poor people lived, mostly in neat cottages with honeysuckle
climbing over their trellised porches.  There were most likely nice
old women there, who sat knitting in their tidy room, with spectacled
eyes, and caps as white as snow.  It would be nice to go there, and
surely to visit them would be useful, and would please Him who made
use of a "few small fishes" to do His work when He was on earth.

Full of this happy thought, Bryda descended to the kitchen.  The
servants'-hall dinner was just over, the kitchen-maid was washing
plates in the scullery, and cook was sitting by the kitchen window
with a very clean apron and very smart cap; while by her stood a tall
young shepherd, in his Sunday best, and a flower in his coat.

Bryda made her request to cook, namely, that she might have a little
soup in a jug.

"Whatever do you want it for, miss?" asked the cook, evidently
ill-pleased by the interruption.

"I want to do good to the poor," answered she, looking up seriously
at the cross face.

"Dear! miss: what an old-fashioned child you are!" cried cook.  But
she fetched the soup, and Bryda was much surprised to see that it was
a cold bright jelly, very nice to carry, as there could be no fear of
spilling it on her fresh Sunday frock.  So off she started, and
walked quickly down the avenue and out into the pretty village, with
her soup and her testament.  But now came a new puzzle--Bryda knew
none of the people in the village.  To which house should she go?

Looking round, she saw that one of the houses looked much poorer than
the others.  The little garden was full of weeds, the porch shabby
and broken, with creepers that sadly wanted nailing, hanging loosely
from the wall, one poor rose quite bent to the earth with heavy
blossoms.  Everything looked neglected, and Bryda thought the people
must be very poor indeed, since their home looked so wretched.
Timidly walking up to the door, for her courage began to fail her a
little, she tapped gently.

"Open the door, Betsy," said a gruff voice inside; to which another
voice answered, grumbling:

"Can't you do it yourself, you stupid old woman?"

Then the door opened suddenly, and Bryda saw a rough-looking girl of
about fifteen, with a very dirty face, shock head, and untidy, torn
dress, whose voice was as rough as her look, holding the door.

"Now, then, what do you want?" she said, frowning fiercely at her
trembling visitor.  "D'yer want to know the way, or to ax a glass of
water?  That's all folks like you ever troubles folks like us for,
'cept when we're ill, and then yer brings us tracks:" by which she
probably meant tracts.

"If you please," said poor Bryda, "I thought some one might be ill
here, and so I brought some soup."

"Come in, my dear, come in," said the old woman from her corner, and
began coughing and wheezing very loudly, groaning so dreadfully
between her attacks that Bryda was more frightened than ever, and
thought she was going to die.  Perhaps some soup would do her good;
so she timidly entered the cottage, the girl immediately shutting the
door behind her, set down her little basket, and began to open it.

"That's a nice bit o' chain round yer neck," said the rude girl,
coming behind her.  "I wonder if it wouldn't look better on me."  So
saying, she quickly unclasped the pretty silver chain that hung round
her visitor's neck, and put it on her own, before Bryda had time to
object.

The old woman had, meantime, stopped coughing; she got up quickly and
seized the jug of clear soup-jelly, and began poking her shriveled
old fingers in, and so eating it.  But the girl, seeing this, caught
the hand that held the jug, while the old woman was eating and
muttering all the time.

"Soup for the sick!  Oh, yes, I am very ill!  Bring me some soup, my
dear; bring me plenty of soup." The rough girl caught the jug and
tried to put her own fingers in, on which a struggle followed; the
pitcher fell to the floor and broke, while the jelly was scattered
everywhere; and poor Bryda, frightened almost out of her wits, left
the two dreadful women to fight, opened the door, and ran as if they
were after her, leaving locket and chain, and her basket, and feeling
as if she were fortunate in escaping at all.

Rushing blindly on, she hardly knew where, only feeling that she must
run, her foot caught in the root of a tree, and she fell violently to
the ground, striking her head against the trunk.  Stupid as she felt,
in a moment she was trying to struggle up, when a hand was laid on
her shoulder; and, thinking it must be the dreadful girl who had so
frightened her, the poor girl screamed aloud.

"Hush, hush! don't scream that way!" said a kind, soothing voice; an
arm gently raised her, and Bryda, looking up, saw an old man, with
cheeks like a winter-apple, white hair, and a pair of the kindest,
friendliest old eyes that ever looked through spectacles, standing
beside her.

"Come into my cottage here, and rest a little."

Bryda looked round her, feeling that for this time she had had enough
of the inside of cottages.

"Do now," went on the old man.  "Don't be afeard, missy!  Thy
grandfather and old Roger were young together; ah! and good friends
they were, too, for all I could beat him at wrestling; he never took
it amiss, did Master George--that's your grandad, little missy.  Come
in now, and welcome."  Bryda gained a little courage at this speech,
and followed the old man into his cottage, close to which she had
fallen.

As she went she could see the rude girl looking out of her house and
making ugly faces.

"Which she need not have done," said Bryda afterward; "she was
_hideous_ already!"




CHAPTER V.

OLD ROGER.

Directly Bryda was inside the old man's cottage she was able to
collect her scattered wits, and look round at her kind friend and at
his dwelling.

The little room into which she had come served as the old man's
sitting-room and kitchen both; the door into what would naturally
have been his little parlor was open, and she could see tools hanging
up on neat wooden racks, half-finished chairs and boxes lying about,
and in the center of the room a carpenter's bench and turning-lathe.
The carpenter himself wore a very old-fashioned dress, long blue
knitted stockings, strong low shoes with buckles, a scarf wound round
and round his throat, so that two little points of very white collar
came just under his chin, and a funny old brown coat with
peculiar-looking buttons.

He drew a chair for Bryda near the hearth on which burned a small
wood fire, and above which were a great many memorial cards in
frames--wonderful works of art, with very black backgrounds and very
white tombs, over which leaned in exhausted attitudes drooping female
figures, supposed to be lamenting the departed in the tombs, while
usually a large weeping willow languished in one corner of the
picture.

The carpenter himself sat down, where he had evidently been sitting
before, at a small table, on which was a very large Bible with
pictures in it.

As he did so his eyes rested on the opposite wall, on which was a
quaint old woodcut, representing the Christ in Joseph's workshop at
Nazareth, with a glory round His heady busily making a table.  Bryda
saw, it too, and could not help noticing the look of pleasure that
came into the old man's face, as if he had suddenly seen a very dear
friend.

"You're a carpenter, Mr. Roger?" said Bryda, trying not to feel shy.

"Ay, ay," answered the old man, turning his spectacled eyes slowly
from the picture to her face.  "I make chairs and tables, and all
else that I've strength for, just as He did," pointing to the
picture.  "He made them for over twenty years, but I've made them now
for twice that, and more.  Nigh on to seventy years I've done the
same work as He did; and whenever I do a real neat job, missy, I say
to myself, "That's right, Roger; do 'em better and better still, and
some day you'll do one that He needn't a-been ashamed of."

"Do you think the Lord made the best chairs and tables?" asked Bryda,
wondering.  She had been so much more used to think of our Redeemer
as He taught, and worked miracles, and went about doing good, than as
the carpenter who worked quietly in a little out-of-the-way village.

"I dunno about the best, missy; maybe He never had the best teaching
leastways, not to make grand folks' furniture.  But I know every nail
He drove was put in true and straight, and never a bit of bad wood
used, or a place people wouldn't see left unfinished.  All the work
He did was the best He knew to do--that I know right well, missy."

Bryda sighed.  She had come out to try and do some of the Lord's own
work--to help the poor.  And she had failed so horribly, with the
best intentions!  The old carpenter heard her sigh.

"Tell old Roger how you got into trouble, missy," he said; "and maybe
a cup of tea would freshen you after all's done."

It was only half-past three, but the old man got up and bustled
about, laying tea on the clean deal table, with a cloth still
cleaner, for Bryda and himself, a big loaf, and a little bit of
country butter.  Then he put the kettle on to boil, and sat down
opposite Bryda to watch it, while she told all the story of her
adventure to her new friend, beginning with the scrape of yesterday,
and Cousin Salome's story, and ending by saying sadly that it seemed
as if there was no use for her in the world.

"Don't fret, my dear; don't fret," said the kind old man; "the Lord
has a use for everything and everybody, if they'll ask Him to show
the way.  Why, the dear Lord had need of a donkey once, and He sent
to ask for it.  Didst ask Him what to do, little miss, before thou
went?"

Bryda hung her head.  That she had not done.

"That's where the fault was," said Roger thoughtfully.  "What dost
think 'ud happen if I tried to do squire's work, or parson's?  They
wouldn't thrive with me, for sure."

At this moment the cottage door opened, and the object of Bryda's
terror, the shock-headed girl, entered.  In one hand she held Bryda's
locket and chain, in the other her basket, both of which she thumped
down upon the table, so that all the tea-things rattled, merely
saying, "There, take yer things, and don't come near us no more!"
She bounced out again, and banged the door behind her.

"So it was Moll Dawson as freckened ye!" said Roger, when she was
gone; "she's a real bad 'un, that girl.  I'm thinking she's one of
those lambs that run further off because they hear the Shepherd
calling."

"I shall never dare to go near her house again," said Bryda; "but I
am glad she did not steal my locket and chain.  And I wish I could
help somebody who is sick or very poor," she added, returning to her
first idea.

The old carpenter leaned his elbows on his knees, and looked at Bryda
very earnestly.

"When I were a young 'un," he said, "and lived in a part of the
country far away from here, there was a cold, clear spring as bubbled
up by the roadside, with the best water in all the country round,
that never dried up.  And they called it 'The Child's Well,' and told
a pretty story about it."

"Oh, do tell me!" said Bryda eagerly, roused at once by the idea of a
story, like a dog at the scent of game.

[Illustration: (Bryda and the old Roger)]

"Well," continued the old man, "they say that once, long years ago,
there was a little lassie troubled in mind like you, missy, and
wanting to do a bit o' work for the dear Lord.  So every day, when
she left her little white bed, she knelt down and prayed summat like
this: 'Dear Lord,' says she, 'give me a little bit of Thy great work
to do.'  And all day long she was kind and gentle, and always doin' a
hand's turn for some one, if it was only mindin' a babby while the
mother went out.

"But she didn't understand, ye see, missy, that such bits o' things
could belong to the Lord's work.  Till one day, as the story goes,
when it was a holiday, all the chicks went out, and were going some
way off to play.  Just as they got a little way out of the village,
on the dusty, hot road, they met an old man, very foot-sore, and old
and tired-lookin'.  So he says, 'For dear pity's sake, little 'uns,
give me a little water.'  But the well was some way back, and the
childer in a hurry to go and play, so they one and all told him to go
on furder, and he'd find what he wanted.  All but this little maid:
she stayed looking wistfully at the old man, though the others called
to her to come on.  'Sit down,' she says, 'till I fetch you some
water,' and off she runs back to the village, fills a cup, and brings
it back steady, not spillin' a drop.  But when she came where she
left the old man sitting, there was a beautiful figure, all in a
white dress with, gold about it, and such a face as she had never
seen before.  And He took the cup and put it to His lips, and then
with a voice like the sound of many waters--so she told the people
after--He told her, 'Even a cup of cold water, given to the very
least, shall have its reward.'  And He poured out the rest of the
water, and where it fell this spring rose up.  And while the little
maid looked at it, all on a sudden He was gone."

[Illustration: And where the water fell this spring rose up.]

"Was it an angel that she saw?" asked Bryda, in an awe-struck tone.

"Some say it was an angel, some say it was the dear Lord Himself,"
said the old carpenter, bowing his head reverently.  "But I don't
rightly know, missy; I don't rightly know."

Here the kettle made a distraction by boiling over, and old Roger
took it off and made tea.

Then his little visitor, who had now quite recovered her spirits,
suggested that it would be "awfully nice" if they had some buttered
toast, and in two minutes he and Bryda were on two stools by the
fire, each with slice of bread at the end of a fork, the old man and
little girl as happy as it was possible to be.

They were just going to turn their pieces and toast the other sides,
when suddenly the door opened, and Bryda's nurse entered like a whirl
wind, and stood horror-struck on the threshold.

"Oh, Miss Bryda, you naughty, naughty girl!  Whatever do you think
your poor dear mother would say, seeing you sitting there, for all
the world like a vulgar child, and every one up at the house running
about distracted, because you're lost?  Come away this minute!"

[Illustration: (Girl sitting on the grass)]

Bryda had nothing to say for herself.  She meant to do good; but it
was very naughty to slip away "unbeknown," as nurse would say, and
frighten every one.

The old carpenter had tea alone after all, and Bryda went sorrowfully
home with her scolding nurse.




CHAPTER VI.

UNCLE JACK'S STORY.

Uncle Jack came home next day, and Bryda's spirit rose from freezing
to a very high point indeed when she saw him come into the garden,
where she was sitting rather sadly, with knitted brows, very busily
thinking, and staring hard at nothing.  She was trying to think how
it was that she could not manage to be of more use; and that is a
very deep subject to think about when you are only nine years old.

"Though, after all," said Bryda to herself, "lessons may do me some
good.  When things are disagreeable, like doses and lessons, people
say they are for your good; but I don't see how they can do any one
else good."

Just as she was thinking this, a merry whistled tune came through the
trees.  Nobody could whistle like Uncle Jack.

"What's the matter, maiden all forlorn?" asked his cheery voice.
"Here comes the man all tattered and torn to rouse you up!"

"Oh, Uncle Jack!" said Bryda sorrowfully, "I am of no use."

"No use! who cares about that?  Perhaps you were made for ornament,
like the roses, and butterflies, and nice little singing-birds."

"Ornament's no use," went on Bryda, sadly still.

"Isn't it?  If the world had no birds, and no flowers, and no
butterflies, and no children, only hard-working men and women and
cart-horses, what sort of place would it be?"

"Very dull," said Bryda quickly.

"So I should think.  And supposing the birds were all harnessed to
carts, and the flowers mown down for hay, and the children set to
work in offices all day long, would that be nice?"

Bryda laughed.  "No, indeed, Uncle Jack."

"Well, then, Bryda's work is to look merry, and good-tempered, and
happy, as if she was a tame sunbeam that the grannies kept to amuse
them."  Bryda laughed still more.

"Uncle Jack do you know you are horribly nice?" she said, dragging
him down to a seat.

"Horribly nice?  What sort of niceness is that?  Like raspberry jam,
or pet kittens, or troublesome children?"  All these are nice, and
horrible too.  Jam is horrible when it makes you ill, kittens when
they scratch, children when they behave badly."

"I wish I could grow up all at once," said Bryda, with a sigh; "and
then I should never get into scrapes again, and have grandmother
calling me Bridget."

This was Bryda's idea of the worst thing that could be said to her;
when she was naughty her own mother, and the grannies too, called her
Bridget, instead of using her pet name.

"Would you like all other children to grow up too, and have only men
and women in the world?  Oh, poor Bryda! how dull you would be!
Supposing I were to tell you a story about a country where something
of the sort happened?"

"Please, please do!" cried Bryda; "only please, Uncle Jack, don't let
it have a moral.  Miss Quillnib used to tell me stories when it was
too wet to go out after lessons, and there was always a
moral--something about me, you know.  And that spoiled the story,
just the way powders spoil raspberry jam."

Uncle Jack laughed at his little niece's fancies, then settled
himself comfortably on the garden seat, lit his pipe, and went on
talking between the puffs, telling his promised story.


UNCLE JACK'S STORY.

"Once upon a time," began Uncle Jack, "since we know no fairy stories
are worth hearing unless they begin with 'once upon a time.'

"Once upon a time there was a country ruled over by a king and queen
who had no children.  Having no children of their own, these
sovereigns thought other people's children a nuisance.  I am afraid
they were like the fox, who said the grapes were sour because he
could not reach them, for it was well known that they wanted some of
these 'torments' very badly themselves."

"Don't call us torments, Uncle Jack," interrupted his little niece.

"Well, you see, madam, historians must be truthful.  I am bound to
say that the king and queen passed a law in which the children were
described as 'pickles, torments, plagues, bothers, nuisances,
worries,' and by twenty-four other titles of respect which I have
forgotten.  This law enacted:

"First--That the children were to be seen and not heard.  Wherefore
all children under the age of sixteen were to speak in a whisper and
laugh in a whisper."

"They couldn't, Uncle Jack," broke in Bryda, "they could only smile!"

"Or grin," said Uncle Jack.  "So you think that a cruel law, Bryda?

"Secondly--As the sight of a child set the royal teeth on edge, no
child was to be allowed to set foot out of doors, unless between the
hours of twelve and one on any night when there was neither moon nor
stars."

"At that rate they would never go out," said Bryda.

"Well, you see this was a law for the abolition of children; so they
were to be suppressed as much as possible, of course.

"Then, thirdly, the law declared--That, as little pitchers have long
ears, no child should ever hear the conversation of grown-up people.
Therefore children were never to be admitted into any sitting-room
used by the elders of the family, nor into any kitchen or room
occupied by servants."

"O-o-oh!" said Bryda; "did they keep them in the coal-cellar?"

"In some houses, perhaps."

"Fourthly--Forasmuch as play was not a profitable occupation, and led
to noise and laughter, all play-time and holidays should at once be
abolished."

"That was a very bad law," said Bryda warmly.

"Well, the law was passed, and was soon carried out; and any one
coming to the city would have thought there were no children, so
carefully were they kept out of sight.  All the toy shops were
closed, and confectioners were ordered, under pain of death, neither
to make nor sell goodies.  But one thing the king had forgotten, and
that was that, after all, there were more children than grown people
in the country.  One family had nine children, another six, and so
on; so that, counting the boarding-schools, there were just three
times as many children as grown people in the capital.  Well, after
about a week of this treatment (for the parents were compelled under
threat of instant execution to carry it out), it happened that there
came a night when at twelve o'clock, though it was not raining, there
was neither moon nor star to be seen.  So all the children in the
city rushed forth into the park with Chinese lanterns in their hands,
making quite a fairy gathering under the trees.  Oh, how delicious it
was!  They ran and shouted, and played games and laughed, till
suddenly one o'clock struck; and all the king's horses, and all the
king's men, came to drive them to their homes again.  But there were
hundreds and hundreds of children, and only a few soldiers with
wooden swords; for this was a very peaceable nation, and armed even
its police with only birch rods.  So one of the biggest boys blew a
tin trumpet, and called all the children to him.

"'I vote we rebel,' he said.  'We will not stand this any more; let
us drive away all the grown-ups, and have the town altogether to
ourselves.'

"Now it so happened that a fairy had been watching all that went on
in the town, and was not at all pleased.  So when she heard this bold
boy speak she thought it would be a good thing to let this rebellion
be carried out.  'Serve 'em right,' she said; 'young and old shall
all learn a lesson.'

"So she collected a few thousand fairies, and they flew to all the
king's men, and whispered in their left ears dreadful things, which
frightened them terribly and made them believe an immense army,
instead of the troops of children, was coming to crush them all.
Then the fairies whispered in their right ears that it would be wise
to fly to a neighboring mountain where there was a large old fort,
and there take refuge.  So they galloped off as fast as the king's
horses would carry them.  Then the fairies flew all over the town and
whispered the same things to all the grown-up people--fathers and
mothers, old maids and old bachelors--till they, too, tumbled out of
bed, dressed in a terrible hurry, and fled to the mountain.  Even the
king jumped out of bed, tied up his crown in his pocket-handkerchief,
and ran for his life in his dressing-gown, while two lords in
waiting, or gentlemen of the bedchamber, rushed after him with the
royal mantle of ermine, and the scepter and golden ball.  The lord
chancellor filled his pockets with new sovereigns from the mint (for
he slept there to look after the money) and then he too ran, but
rather slowly, for he had the woolsack on his back, and it was pretty
heavy.  When they asked him why he took the trouble he answered that
he thought the ground might be damp, and he already had a cold in his
head.

"Well, all the elders being gone, the children were left in
possession of the city, at which you may well suppose they were
greatly astonished.  They went on with their games for awhile; but
then the lanterns began to go out, and one after another they grew
very sleepy.  So the boy with the tin trumpet blew it again, and
commanded that every one should now go to bed, and that a meeting
should be held at twelve o'clock next day in the park, at which every
child should appear.

"Appear they did, in their Sunday clothes, those of them at least who
cared for finery; there were no mothers or nurses to object.  All
were in great delight at having no one to rule them.

"'I shall never go to bed at eight!' said one.

"'I shall never eat rice pudding--horrid stuff!'

"'I shall never take any more doses!'

"'I shall never do any more lessons!'

"'Nor I! nor I! nor I!' shouted one after another; 'we shall all do
only what we like!  How happy we shall be!'

"Only one little maid whispered, with a tear trembling on the long
lashes of her blue eyes, 'Dottie wants mother!'  But Dottie was soon
comforted, and ran about as merrily as ever.

"Meantime the elder boys and girls held a very noisy Parliament, in
which there were never less than five speaking at once.  After a
great deal of chatter they determined to set up a queen; and a very
pretty little girl called May was chosen, and crowned with a crown of
flowers.

[Illustration: (Dancing children)]

"Next, Queen May and her council of six, three boys and three girls,
ordered that a big bonfire should be made of all lesson-books and
pinafores, for they thought pinafores were signs of an inferior
state, of being under command, as servants sometimes think their caps
are.

"The next law was that all the raspberry jam in the city should be
set aside for the use of the queen and her court, and for those who
were invited to the royal tea parties.  There was a little grumbling
about this, but finally the grumblers gave in.  All this time troops
of children came pouring in from the neighboring villages with
pinafores on the end of broom sticks as flags of rebellion.  Being
pretty hungry, they dispersed for dinner, which in most of the houses
was a very curious meal, as, of course, no one could cook, so they
had to forage in the kitchens and storerooms, while bands of hungry
young folks stormed the confectioners' shops, and dined off ices and
wedding-cake.

"Then they opened the toy-shops and put them in charge of parties of
children and gradually the other shops were treated in the same way,
for buying and selling is always a game children like, and it was
such a treat to have real things to sell.  Only money was such a
trouble: they were always forgetting to bring any, and the young
shopkeepers never were sure if a shilling or a sovereign was the
right price for a thing.  Therefore they concluded to do without it;
and costly things were bought for kisses, while cheap ones were to be
had for saying, 'If you please,' or, if they were very small, as a
penny bun, for instance, then 'please' was enough."

"How nice!" said Bryda.

"Well, for a whole week there never was such happiness as the
children enjoyed.  Games from morning to night, bread and jam three
times a day, no lessons, no forbidden things, and a queen of their
own age in place of the tyrant king.

[Illustration: For a whole week there were games.]

"But when a week was over some little murmurs began to arise.  Every
morning, I ought to say, the queen sat on her throne in the royal
palace, to receive any of her subjects who liked playing at being
courtiers, and she and her council then settled any difficulty that
arose about rules of games, about the way to make the best toffee and
any other important question.

"On this particular morning, then, rather more than a week after the
establishment of the Children's Kingdom, a very large throng entered
the queen's presence.  Foremost came a troop of boys and girls, who
led in a pale, serious-looking boy as a prisoner, and brought him to
Queen May's feet.

"'What is the charge against this prisoner?' asked the queen, with
dignity.  'Don't all speak at once,' she added, so hastily that
several courtiers giggled.

"'Please your majesty,' said a boy, stepping forward, 'we caught him
in the act--the very act--of learning lessons!'

"'Lessons!' cried the whole court, in every tone of disgust, anger,
grief and dismay.

"'Lessons!' screamed the queen, and at once fainted away."

"She didn't!" said Bryda indignantly.

"Don't you think the shock was great enough?" asked Uncle Jack.
"Besides, she felt it part of her royal duty, perhaps.

"Anyhow, they tickled her with feathers, and put burned cork to her
nose till she had a black mustache; and one boy brought a red-hot
poker, which he said he had heard was a good thing, though he did not
quite know how it was applied.

"It was the best remedy, certainly, for on its appearance the queen
jumped up shrieking, and declared she was perfectly well.

"Then the queen proceeded to try the prisoner, and requested the
whole court to act as jury.  It was a very sad case of youthful
depravity--the criminal had carefully kept this one book, 'Somebody's
Arithmetic,' or 'Hangnail's Questions,' to gloat over in secret; and
even now was not at all penitent, but declared, when asked what he
had to say for himself, that it was 'stupid, and a bore,' to play
games all day long, and he was sick of them.

"The jury could not agree as to what was to be done with such an
offender, and so he was allowed to go, and bidden 'not to do it
again,' and the queen went on to the next difficulty.  Here the
throne-room became quite full of children, all in great perplexity;
for the matter was this, that the food supply was running short.  The
confectioners' shops were nearly empty; there was plenty of jam, but
very little bread; and one or two boys, who had breakfasted on jam
out of a pot, eaten with a spoon, said, 'They didn't know how it
could be, but somehow they thought it did not quite agree with them.'

"This was really very serious.  Could no one cook?

"Well, several had tried to make puddings; but somehow, though they
ought to have been quite right, _something_ was wrong, and no one
would eat them.  One girl had bravely made some apple-dumplings, and
baked them quite brown; but then she could not find out how to get
the apple in, so they were no more than hard balls, and not real
apple-dumplings at all.

"'What are we going to do?' said Queen May sorrowfully.

"A dead silence reigned.

"'I know!' said a boy called Eric, starting forward suddenly, and all
eyes turned to this owner of a bright idea.  'I know!' he said,
brandishing a many-bladed knife; 'I'll kill a pig!'

"A murmur of horror arose from the girls.

"'Oh, no!' said Queen May politely; 'my faithful subject, we will not
let you make yourself so miserable."

"Oh, _I_ don't mind!' cried Eric; 'really, you know, I should _like_
it!'

"'I'll hold him for you!' cried several boys at once.

"'Quite as if they liked it,' whispered the girls.

"But Queen May interposed, and said the court should break up and go
to blind-man's-buff.  At the same hour next day any one who had a
bright idea should come and tell it.  For the rest of the day she, at
least, did not mean to bother her head.  If a pig were killed, it
would have to be cooked.  And shaking her curls, which were like a
crown of gold, Queen May jumped off her throne and ran out into the
park.

"Presently the Fairy Set-'em-right came flying over the town, and saw
all the children running about and shrieking with laughter.

[Illustration: The fairy came flying over the town.]

"'Bless my broomstick!' she said, for she had borrowed one from a
witch to fly upon, saying she had rheumatism in her left wing.
'Bless my broomstick! this won't do at all!'

"She did not notice that a great many children were standing about in
groups, whispering--what they dared not say aloud--that they were
getting tired of games all day, and of nothing to eat but sweet cakes
and jam at meals.

"'I should really, really and truly, like some boiled mutton,' said
Master Archie, who was known to have had a special dislike to that
dish.

"'I know what I shall do,' said the fairy; 'I shall make these
children feel like grownups, and then I shall fly off to the
mountain, and make the grown-ups feel like children: and if _that_
doesn't bring them to their senses, I am sure I don't know what
will.'"

At this exciting point a servant came to tell Uncle Jack that
grandfather wanted him, and he went off whistling, promising Bryda
the rest of the story "next time."

But as she did not know when "next time" would be, it was rather
provoking.




CHAPTER VII.

BEPPO.

Bryda sat still where Uncle Jack had left her, thinking over his
story.

"You see, my dear," she said to herself (Bryda had a funny way of
calling herself "my dear" when she talked to herself, and told
herself stories, or read herself little moral lectures as Miss
Quillnib her governess used to do); "You see, my dear, the thing is
this: when any one tells a story they can make things happen so that
there shall always be a good moral.  Now, I am sure that town in the
story would be a very nice place, but Uncle Jack is sure to make
everything go wrong!"

Here nurse came and carried Miss Bryda off for a walk.  They went
through the village, and old Roger was at his work.  The house-door
was open, and he nodded a pleasant "Good-day."

Bryda lingered a moment.

"Isn't this a nice day, Roger?" she said.

"Ay, ay, little miss," answered the carpenter, "it's one of the
Lord's own days.  He doesn't give us too many of them, for fear we'd
get too fond o' this place, and not be in a hurry to go to our
Father's house."

Nurse had stopped to talk to the blacksmith.  It was funny, but she
always had something special to tell the blacksmith; and he would
keep a horse waiting ever so long to be shod while they talked,
though really they never seemed to say anything very interesting.

However, Bryda knew she would have some time to herself, so she
walked into old Roger's cottage, and sat down on a bench among the
sawdust and shavings.

"I suppose you are very poor, aren't you, Roger?" she asked, after
watching him silently for some time.

"Poor, missy?  Well, maybe some folks 'ud think so, but there's no
man in the village richer, for all that!"

"Then why don't you have a grander house?"

"I'll go to my grand house by and by, missy," he answered, driving a
screw carefully.  "Ah! a grand house that is indeed!  It's making
ready for me all this time; but when once I go, I'll not come back
here again!"

"I should think not!" answered Bryda, looking round the poor cottage.
"Is it a palace, Roger?"  Bryda's idea of a palace was something very
splendid--golden tables, and silver chairs, and all the rest of the
furniture to match.

"Ay, you may well call it a palace!  There's no house hereabouts
would match that one," answered Roger, in his cheery voice.

"Does any one else live there?"

"Oh, yes!  All my brothers and sisters--the children of the King."

"Miss Bryda!  Miss Bryda!  You troublesome child!" called the nurse's
voice.  "Come along, this minute! wherever have you got to--poking in
them low places?"

"Nurse did not think the forge a low place," thought Bryda, but she
was obliged to go.

"Nurse," she said, when that worthy person had done scolding, "do you
know, I am sure I may go and see that old carpenter, for he is not a
common man at all, but a prince in disguise Only fancy!  Just like a
fairy tale!"

"Fairy grandmother!" said nurse, who was not in the best of tempers;
and they went on for some way in silence through the village.

A little outside the village stood a neat white house, in which the
doctor lived, and in front of this a woman in an Italian dress was
turning the handle of a barrel-organ, while a handsome boy of five or
six, or perhaps older--for though small, he had an old look in his
face--stood holding a little tin mug to collect pennies.  There were
no pennies in it; the woman looked dreadfully pale and ill, and
coughed without stopping, and the child's big, black eyes looked very
sorrowful.

The doctor's servant came out of the white house, and roughly ordered
them away, with abuse which shocked Bryda to hear.

Evidently the kind doctor was not at home, for he would have been
sorry for the poor sick woman, who was trying to earn a few pence
when any one who was better off would have been in bed, carefully
nursed.

Bryda had a penny; she meant to buy sugar-candy, but she dropped it
into the little tin, and was rewarded by a bright smile on the little
face, and "Tank you, signorina;" by which the little boy meant,
"Thank you, miss."  That was nicer than sugar-candy.

"I can't abide furriners," said nurse.  "Aren't there any little
white children for you to give your money to, Miss Bryda, without
encouraging those outlandish folks to beg?"

Bryda did not answer; she was wondering if the Lord would think her
penny of any use for His poor.  It was a very little coin, but it was
all she had then.  It would buy a bit of bread; and, perhaps, one of
the "few small fishes" was not worth much more.

As they came home again Bryda saw the same woman and child toiling
along the road in front of them, entering the village again.

The woman staggered under the weight of her barrel-organ; she seemed
very faint and weak; either she must be very ill, or she had had no
proper food.  Perhaps both misfortunes were hers.

A baker's man went riding by with some loaves in a basket.  As he
passed the Italian woman the horse seemed frightened, either at her
white sleeves or at the instrument she carried, and Bryda saw him
sway violent and throw one of the loaves out upon the road.  The
baker did not miss it, and rode on faster, beating his horse.

But the little Italian boy sprang at it; and Bryda felt sure he was
cruelly hungry from the way in which he seized the bread and put it
to his mouth.  He did not bite it though, but changing his mind, ran
to his mother, and held it out.

"_Madre mia, pane!_" he cried.  "My mother, bread!" he meant.

The lad's mother looked at the loaf of bread for a moment--only a
moment; then she shook her head, and spoke to the child in Italian.
The baker had stopped at a house by the roadside; the boy was off
like the wind, and soon came up breathless, and handed him the loaf.

The baker was a kind-hearted man, and gave the child a roll, with
which he ran back to his mother.  Then he broke it in two and offered
her the large half, beginning at once to munch the other himself.
The mother took a little of the piece he had given her, but she
seemed too faint and weak to eat more than a mouthful.

By this time Bryda and her nurse had overtaken them.

"Little boy," said Bryda shyly, all her pity roused by the scene,
"where do you live?"

[Illustration: "Little boy," said Bryda shyly, "where do you live?"]

The child was not shy; he looked her full in the face with his big
black eyes, and pointed to the village.

"In house-yesterday-next-day," he said in his broken English.

"You are living there for a few days, are you?" asked Bryda, puzzled.

The boy nodded.

"Do tell me your name?" she asked again.

"Beppo, signorina."

Here nurse again interposed.  She was a cross-grained woman, very
faithful to her duty, but with little sympathy to spare, and she did
not at all approve of "Miss Bryda's notions," about caring for the
poor.

"When you get your governess and plenty of lessons to do, you won't
be so anxious about them low creatures, miss," she told Bryda.
"Learn to play tunes on the piano, and paint pictures like other
young ladies--that's what you've got to think about."

But poor little Bryda, though she often, as we have seen, got into
trouble and mischief (for she was not at all a model little girl),
did really want to serve the Lord Jesus, of whose great love she had
learned, and her great wish was to know what a little girl could do
for Him.

The Lord Jesus was always helping the poor, and she knew His faithful
servants did the same, so it was a sad puzzle to her to find such
treatment as Moll Dawson's, when she tried to do some good.  Perhaps
Uncle Jack was right, and she ought not to have tried to do what was
only grown people's work.

But here was this little Italian boy.  He looked sad, and seemed
hungry and very poor, and his mother was so ill.  How sad it was!

Bryda knelt by the window when she came home, and looked up at the
beautiful blue sky, where a happy lark was singing--so high up he
ought to be nearly at the doors of heaven.

"Our Father," she prayed, "let me help Beppo a little, for Jesus
Christ's sake."

[Illustration: "Our Father," Bryda prayed, "let me help Beppo."]

And this little prayer of "one of His little ones" went straight to
the ear of the loving Father, who is always more ready to hear than
we to pray; and very soon it was answered.

God has so much work for hands, and brains, and tongues, and feet.
In this world a child who loves "helping mother," can do many a
little thing for her, and the work is sooner done, because of such
small helps.  And so the great Father, who uses the little dewdrops
to water His thirsty world, will give to every happy, willing worker
_something_ to do, little works for the little ones, more to His
great angels, and at last heaven shall be full of "servants" who
"serve Him" and see His face, and are never sorrowful, or stupid, or
tired, or disappointed in anything any more.

When Bryda had asked God to let her help Beppo she felt much happier.
She would talk by and by to Cousin Salome about him.

Meantime she had the greatest of all treats, for in the afternoon
Uncle Jack was going to drive in his dogcart, with Paddy in the
shafts; and the pace at which Paddy went was what Uncle Jack called
"greased lightning."  Anyhow, it was something very different from
the solemn jog, jog, jog, one, two, three, four, one, two, three,
four, of Gog and Magog, when the grannies took her out, and old John
dozed on the box.

"It's so dull to have to drive alone," said Uncle Jack at lunch, with
a heavy sigh.

"Call for Captain Tomkins, and take him out," said grandmother.

"I'm so shy," answered Uncle Jack sadly.  "But if I could find a
young lady, a very young lady of about eight or so, to come with
me----"

"Oh!  Uncle Jack, take _me_!" burst out Bryda.  And so he did; and
best of all, when they were fairly started, Uncle Jack lit a big
cigar, and between the puffs went on with his fairy tale.




CHAPTER VIII.

THE REST OF THE STORY.

"So the Fairy Set-'em-right waved her hand over the troop of
children.  'You shall all feel like grown-up people,' she said.

"In a few minutes a strange change began to come over them all.  A
great game of 'blind-man's-buff' was going on, when suddenly several
of the girls put themselves into very stiff, solemn attitudes, just
like old maids, and said, 'Really, they thought they were almost
afraid they could not play any more.  Such games, especially at their
time of life, were hardly quite proper.'  So they would not go on.
Others, again, declared that there was nothing they so thoroughly
enjoyed as watching people playing at these kind of amusements; but
for themselves--well, if the others did not mind, they would like
just to sit quietly and watch.  So they did, and presently some of
the boys began stroking that part of their faces where a mustache
might some day grow, and remarking that 'Haw! don't know, you
know--a--this sort of thing was all very well for schoolboys, but
really--a--we could not, you know.'"

This sentence Uncle Jack brought out with a very funny drawl, the
boys being turned in to dreadfully fashionable fellows.

"The crowning point," continued Uncle Jack, "was reached when the
blind man, pushing down his bandage, stood still, and addressed this
altered crowd very seriously indeed.  'What miserable folly is this?'
he asked.  'Shall we mortals waste our precious flying moments in--in
what, my brethren?'

"You see he had turned into a preacher," explained Uncle Jack.

"'In what a miserable, frivolous occupation!  catching each
other!--nay, only _trying_ to catch each other!  Poor fools and
blind! let us cease, I say--'  But he had no one to say it to, for
the whole audience had gone off in different directions, and the
preacher had only his little brother of five left to listen to his
wise words.  'Come along, Tommy,' said he, 'I will try and find some
one for you to play with, little man.'

"'Play with!' answered the little brother in a tone of utter
surprise.  'My dear sir, I have no time to play.  Letters, telegrams,
appointments by scores fill my time.  Let me tell you, sir, there is
no busier man than your humble servant in the whole country.'

"With which he turned about and strode off with the longest strides
his little legs in their blue sailor trousers could take; for he had
become a man of business.

"'This is too absurd,' muttered the elder, and went off to look for
the church of which he was vicar.

"The same remarkable change came over all the children.  One little
brat who was busy teasing an unfortunate kitten stopped suddenly, and
rushed off in search of pen and paper, with which he returned, and
began at once to compose an ode 'To Tabitha.'

  "'Fairest pussy ever seen!
  With mine eyes of clearest green,
    Fly me not.'

That was how it began, for he had become a poet."

[Illustration: Tommy had now become a poet.]

"I thought poets wrote about knights and ladies, and green fields and
the moon," remonstrated Bryda.

"So they do.  But sometimes they want a new subject, and this young
genius thought he had found one.

"Well, all the children, without losing their child faces and
figures, turned into the sort of people they would be when they were
grown up.  So of course their games seemed very dull, and they wanted
grown-up occupations.  But not knowing quite how to set to work, they
were all lounging vaguely about, when the clear notes of a bugle
sounded through the city.

"This was the well-known signal for the assembling of the whole
population in the park, and off went all these queer grown-up
children to the place of meeting.  Here they were met by Queen May,
who sat on a garden-chair with her court around her, all looking very
solemn.

"'My faithful subjects,' said the queen, 'I have sent for you to
consider a very grave question.  I regret to state that the affairs
of this kingdom are in a condition which will, perhaps, be best
described as unsatisfactory.'

"'Hear, hear!' said a gentleman of four, bowing gravely.

"'Hear, hear!' echoed many voices.

"'Perhaps the most unsatisfactory point is,' went on Queen May, who,
you see, talked in very grown-up language, 'is, I say, the banishment
of a large portion of the population; that portion, in fact, which we
were formerly accustomed to call our elders and betters.'

"Cries of 'No, no!'

"Queen May went on to explain that after all they got on badly
without these elders.  With all their efforts the young folks had not
strength or skill to do a variety of things, without which the round
of life seemed likely soon to come to a standstill.  So she proposed
that she and all who would go should start at once for the mountain
and fetch home the exiles.

"There was some murmuring at this.  The old law might be carried out,
and the children made wretched again.

"'And--why, bless me,' said an elderly person of nine, as he fixed on
a double eyeglass with gold rims, 'they might actually want to send
me, me! to bed at eight o'clock!'

"'Proper conditions would be made,' the queen said.

"One after another all the objections were overcome, and a long
procession started, with Queen May, mounted on a white pony, at its
head.

"On arriving at the mountain they were greatly surprised to meet the
king, that stern tyrant who wanted to stop all fun, running as hard
as his legs could carry his fat body, with his crown on the back of
his head, and a green net-bag tied on to the end of his scepter,
chasing a white butterfly.

"'Please, your majesty,' began Queen May shyly; but the king only
looked round for a moment, and ran on, then tumbled over a furze
bush, so that his crown rolled far away, and the butterfly escaped,
while he lay there kicking.

"The children were very much surprised at this, and thought the king
must have gone mad, and, in fact, they felt very penitent, for they
supposed his hurried flight must have been too much for the brain, so
they were to blame for this terrible alteration.

"A little further on, however, they were still more surprised to see
a circle of the most serious old maids in the whole capital, ladies
whose time was mostly spent in making flannel garments for the poor,
or sitting at neat tea-tables with neat curls on each side of their
faces, and a neat cat, curled on a neat cushion, in a neat chair,
close at hand, and these old ladies were all screaming and laughing
like children.

"These very respectable old ladies now looked anything but neat!
Their curls were flying in all directions, and they were screaming
with laughter, pinching each other, and making all sorts of silly
jokes over a furious game of 'hunt the slipper.'  For you see they
had gone back to what they used to like when they were children.

"Queen May looked at them gravely.

"'Dear friends,' she said, 'at your age, is this decorous?  Is it
proper?  Is it even ladylike?'

"'There it is!  Catch it!  Catch it!' cried one of the old ladies.

"'Come and play with us!' cried another.

"None of the rest paid any attention to the serious looks of the
grown-up children, who went sadly on toward the fort, hoping to find
some one more reasonable.

"The next person they saw was the lord chancellor, a bald, stout old
gentleman, who was sitting on the woolsack, which, you remember, he
had carried away on his back.  He was very busy with a pipe, and the
children thought he was smoking, and grew more hopeful.  He might
have some trace of good sense left, they thought, if he could care
for such a grown-up pursuit."

Here Uncle Jack offered his cigar to Bryda politely; but she made a
face and turned her head away.

"I don't want to be so grown-up as _that_," she said.

"Oh!" said Uncle Jack, with his funny face, that he always put on to
tease Bryda.  "Oh, I thought you wanted to grow up all of a sudden."

"Well--only for some things," answered she, feeling that Uncle Jack
was taking a mean advantage in remembering her sayings, and bringing
them up again.  "Please go on," she added hastily.

Uncle Jack winked at her very slowly and solemnly; then took a good
puff at his cigar, and went on.

"When they came up he was found to be blowing soap-bubbles!

"'A-ah!' he spluttered, trying to talk with the pipe in his mouth.
'D-don't break it, please!  There!' as the bubble burst and vanished;
'it's too bad, I declare!  Directly I get a really good one, big and
bright, that always happens.  Have a try,' he added, offering Queen
May the pipe.

"'I say, my lord,' said the major-general commanding the royal army,
coming up at the moment, 'can you tell me how to mend lead soldiers?
I've tried gum and glue, and one of the maids of honor tried to sew
one, but somehow they don't join properly.  It's a horrid bore, and
that fellow, the speaker, won't let me have a ride on his
rocking-horse.  I'd punch him, only he's six feet three, and as broad
as he's long.  So I don't know what to play at.'

"'It _is_ slow,' answered the lord chancellor, pityingly.  'Never
mind, old chap, come up to the fort and we'll make some toffee.'

"So the elderly gentlemen went off arm-in-arm, and Queen May shook
her head sadly.

"'They are all mad, poor things!  What are we to do?'

"'Hi! hi!' cried a voice, and looking round they saw that tall,
handsome nobleman, the master of the horse, running toward them as
fast as he could.  At last, perhaps, they had found some one to speak
sensibly to.

"'Hi! you fellows,' he cried breathlessly; 'stop a minute, will you?
Is that a circus pony? and can he do tricks?  Sit up with a hat on,
and drink out of teacups, I mean.'

"'Certainly not,' replied Queen May, with her utmost dignity.  'I
hardly understand, Lord Moyers, how you can ask such a strange
question.  Did you ever see a lady, especially if she were a crowned
queen, riding a circus pony?'

"Lord Moyers giggled, and turned head-over heels on the spot, after
which he rushed off again to join the rest of the House of Lords, who
were playing 'hi! cockalorum,' close by.

"The procession went on very sorrowfully toward the fort.  It grieved
them to see this frivolity in those to whom they had been taught to
look up.

"'Alas, my country!' sighed Eric, the boy who, you remember, had
proposed to kill the pig before he was touched with the fairy wand.

"Perhaps it was on arriving at the gates of the fort that the very
strangest sight was seen.  The queen was a very stout and middle-aged
person, of rather stern countenance, and here she was busy with a
skipping rope--her hair loose, her royal robes tucked up, and her
crown on one side.

"'It's the best fun and the finest exercise in the world,' she
gasped, 'If I could only skip twice to one turn of the rope!'

"And on she went, while the children watched.  But there was
something so utterly ridiculous about the sight that Queen May and
her followers, after various vain efforts to suppress their mirth,
burst into one peal of laughter, which rang merrily through the old
fort, and over the hillside.

"It broke the charm, and in a moment the children became children
again, and the grown people became as they were before.

"There was a large flat field on the mountain top, in front of the
gates of the old fort, and here all the exiles were in a few minutes
assembled.

"The king was about to address them, when in a moment, no one knowing
how she came there, the Fairy Set-'em-right stood among them, close
beside his majesty.

"'You have all learned a lesson, and I will put it into words for
you,' she said."

"Oh, dear!" interrupted Bryda, "here comes the moral!  Don't make a
very hard one, Uncle Jack, please!"

He laughed.  "I must finish this truthful story truthfully, miss.

"She said, turning to the king and queen:

"'Your fault was that you forgot you once were young yourselves.'"

Bryda nodded her head very wisely.

"'And you, children, forgot that you could not do without old people.
That wicked law is at once repealed.'

"'Certainly, ma'am,' said the king, bowing.

"'Children are to be children, and behave as such, and be treated as
such.  Parents are parents, the children are not to forget that.  Now
go home all of you, and don't forget this one one caution, _I've got
my eye on you_.'

"With these awful words the fairy vanished.  And that's the end of
the story."

"And a very nice ending, too!" said Bryda.




CHAPTER IX.

A PRINCE IN DISGUISE.

More good-tempered than usual next morning, nurse was easily
persuaded by Bryda that the village would be quite the nicest
direction for a walk.  She wanted to see that nice old Roger again,
and perhaps they might even meet Beppo.  She begged a roll left from
breakfast, and put it, wrapped in a sheet of old copy-book, with some
pennies, in her pocket.

The blacksmith was in his forge, and had some very important news for
nurse, and Roger was outside his door busily weaving the cane seat of
a chair he had made, for he was a jack-of-two-trades, if not of all
trades, and made chairs from beginning to end.

"Good morning, Roger," said Bryda, as she came up.

"Good morning, missy.  A good morning it is, though not like
yesterday.  That was a sort o' wedding day, with the world in a green
dress, covered with jewels made of dewdrops, while the birds sang a
hymn, and the great gold sun came in his best blue dress to marry
her," answered the poetical Roger.

"And to-day, Roger?  What's that like?"

"All! to-day's a good honest workin' day, missy, made for the busy
bees and all the Lord's workin' folk."

"Cats aren't working folk," said Bryda, stroking Roger's sleek tabby.

"Maybe cats' work is to keep lone folk company, missy," said the
disguised prince, for as such his little friend always thought of him.

"Shall you have cats in your palace?" she asked.

"That'll be as the king pleases, missy.  I do hope so, for I be main
fond o' cats."

"Is tabby very old? she's very lazy."

"I don't rightly know how old she is.  You see, missy, nigh on two
years ago my housecat died.  Well, I suppose the village cats told
each other when they met on the house-tops at night.  Anyhow I never
could open my door of a morning that there wasn't one cat, or maybe
two and three cats, applying for the situation, each one with a
first-rate character from his last place."

Bryda laughed heartily.  "How did they tell you?"

"How?  Why, bless you, little miss, it's often easier to know what
God Almighty's brutes mean than what men mean, for all we call the
brutes dumb.  Tell me all about it they did, rubbin' against me and
purrin', how the master of one had gone away, and the mistress of
another was dead; and how one was a real good mouser, and another was
that honest he'd rather starve than steal.

"Well, the long and short of it is, missy, I took Mrs. Tabby for a
month on trial, to see if she'd make a good housekeeper.  An' we
suited, she and I, and she's never given me warning yet, nor I her,
so I don't think we'll part company till I go home."

"When are you going, Roger?" asked Bryda.  She could not help
puzzling a good deal over this story of the old man's, about his
palace home; but he spoke so simply and naturally that she could not
doubt that he spoke the truth.

"I don't rightly know," he answered slowly; "I'm thinking when it's
ready they'll let me know.  But I'd be main glad to stay a little
longer now, Miss Bryda, for all I've often wearied to be there.
Shall I show you why?"

"Please do."

The old carpenter got up and opened a door opposite to that which led
to his own little room, and there Bryda saw a touching sight.

[Illustration: (Old Italian woman in chair with Beppo)]

The poor Italian woman was sitting propped up with pillows in a
straight-backed old armchair, with Beppo in her arms.  The child
seemed to have grown sleepy after play, or perhaps, like his
countrymen, he was accustomed to take a nap at midday.  At all events
he was sleeping, and the poor sick mother was gently rocking the
heavy boy, and singing a soft little Italian cradle song:

  "Ninni, ninni, ninni, nanna,
  Ninni, nanna, ninni, nolu,
  Allegrezza di la mamma,
  Addormentati, oh figliolu."


That is:

  "Joy of thy mother,
  Fall asleep, oh, my little son!"


How white she looked and how weary!  She laid her finger on her lip,
and looked at the curly black head on her knee.  Roger closed the
door softly, and went back to his seat on tiptoe.

"I think, missy," he said, "it won't be long before the Everlasting
Arms are put round her, to soothe her gently to sleep, as she do the
little 'un."

"Is she _dying_, Roger?" asked Bryda, in an awe-struck voice.

"Ay," answered the carpenter, wiping his spectacles, which had
suddenly grown dim.  "That little black head'll not long have a
mother to lean against; though she'll want for nothing as I can get
her; and doctor, he sent her full two pints o' stuff, all for
nothing.  But he shook his head, he did, and I know what he means by
that only too well; he did it to my Liz twenty-five years ago, come
March next."

Bryda felt very sorrowful.  Her own mother had gone to India, but
then she wrote letters, nice long ones, every week.  And she would
come back.  But poor Beppo would have no letter from his mother if
once she went away, as she knew Roger's loved wife Liz had done, for
there was an old gravestone by the old church door with that one
little word roughly cut upon it--"Liz."  And on it last Sunday she
had seen the old man lay a bunch of fresh flowers, as he passed in to
pray.

"Will you share your riches with her, Roger--that money you told me
you had stored away?" she asked.

"My hid treasure, missy?  Ah, that I will!  There's so much o'
that--ah, so much!--that I might share it wi' every soul as passed
the door and be none the worse off mysel'."

"You won't want it in your palace, will you?  Or is there more of it
there?  Chests and chests of precious things all the palaces in fairy
tales have in them.  But they are only made up," added Bryda, with a
little sigh.  "That's the worst of fairy tales.  But your treasures
are really true, aren't they, Roger?"

"True when all else is false, missy; safe when all else is lost; real
when all else is a sham."

Bryda longed to ask more about this wonderful wealth of the old man
who looked so poor.  He must be a miser, she thought.

"Roger, are all the king's sons as rich as you are? and his
daughters? or are you the eldest?"

"There's enough for all alike, missy.  No one's too rich or too poor
in our Father's house.  But our Elder Brother, missy, there's none
like him--none.  The only wonder is as he isn't ashamed of his
sisters and brothers, so far as he is above them, and so much greater
than ever since his work was finished."

"Oh, do tell me about him!  Oh, nurse! don't go on yet, please!"
implored Bryda, as nurse came up the little garden-path with hasty
step.

But nurse would not stay.  She always said she "couldn't abide that
old Methody carpenter;" and the real reason of her dislike was that
once before, when she had brought Bryda to stay with the grannies,
old Roger had said something she did not care to hear, because she
had helped to spread a cruel mischief-making story about the village.

So Bryda left her roll and her pence with Roger, and went on with
nurse.

Bryda had not seen the last of Beppo for that day.  There was a
private walk through the grounds, which led to the church.  The
grannies could not walk so far, and the old carriage always came to
take them to church.  But this afternoon, as Bryda was wandering in
the garden, it struck her that she would like to take some flowers
and put them on the grave of Roger's dear Liz.  It would please the
old man to see them there.

Bryda, of course, had never seen Liz.

"But I know exactly what she was like," she told herself.  "She was
not very tall, but just nice; and she had violet eyes and long black
lashes, and pretty rosy cheeks--not too red, but pink like a peach.
Oh, I know she was nice!  And she always wore a brown gown, and a red
handkerchief crossed on her chest.  And I don't wonder Roger loved
her.  I should, too, for she always spoke gently, not like nurse."

So Bryda grew quite fond of the Liz she had thus invented while she
gathered her flowers.

"I wonder what flower Liz was like?  Cousin Salome says we ought all
to be like flowers in God's garden.  If we are, I'd rather be like
some flowers than others.  Here is a tall orange lily.  Oh, you
great, showy thing!  How stiff and proud you are!  And I tell you
you're not so very pretty, after all," said Bryda severely.

The orange lily did not seem to mind in the least, but stood up just
as proudly as ever.

"You poppies, red and white," went on Bryda, "you have much nicer
manners: you're like ladies who are polite as well, and say nicely,
'How do you do, Mr. Jones?  Will you sell me some chickens, please?'
You yellow flowers--I don't know your name--you're very nice till one
comes close, and then you smell horrid.  I think you are like people
who are very polite to strangers, but are nasty and cross at home,
and slap when they play games.

"You, dear roses," she went on, talking to all the flowers in turn,
"you are really too lovely!  But I mustn't put you on Liz's grave,
because the grannies don't like you gathered; you are like beautiful
ladies in pictures, who get prettier and prettier if you go on
looking at them.

"Here are pansies--hearts'ease, nurse calls them.  That is the right
flower for Liz!  She was so gentle, and good, and kind that she made
every one happy.  If you fell down and were hurt, or if you had that
horrid ache all over, that comes of being naughty or unhappy, and you
told Liz, she would make you all right in no time.  She shall have
hearts'ease on her grave and nothing else, except a little
mignonette, for that is quiet and sweet like she was."

[Illustration: (Bryda and her wreath of flowers)]

So Bryda twisted up a pretty wreath of hearts'ease and mignonette, to
take to the grave of this Liz, whose looks and character you see she
had invented for herself, for you know if the carpenter was really a
prince in disguise, of course his wife and daughter were princesses.
Bryda would take the first possible chance of asking old Roger more
about his brother and about the palace, and if he would not be sorry
that Liz could never go there with him.  Meanwhile she set off down
the pretty shrubbery walk with her simple little wreath to lay on the
princess' grave.

"No one would call her Princess Liz.  I suppose she was Princess
Elizabeth," she said to herself.




CHAPTER X.

BEPPO'S FRIEND.

Away went Miss Bryda, with her head full of Liz and her charms, the
flowers in her hand, to the churchyard.

It was peaceful there in the quiet September sunshine, and Bryda felt
sorry to think that the dead people could not see how pretty their
resting-place looked.  It was a large churchyard, with some old
vaults, and white crosses over newer graves; indeed, many generations
of old and young were asleep there.  It was a city of rest, with the
gray old church for its temple in the middle; and its streets were
mossy paths, as unlike as possible to the great, noisy, restless
streets of the big towns of the living.

Bryda put her green wreath with its purple and yellow stars on the
humble grave where there was no grand inscription like that to Sir
Jocelyn de Wraymont close by, with all his virtues in capital letters
after his name; but only that one word "Liz."

Then she went and tried the door of the old church.  It was open; the
vicar never allowed the building to be closed, unless there was some
urgent reason, so that any one who wanted to think or to pray quietly
might come in there.  At first the village people thought this an odd
idea, but after a little time first one and then another found out
this quiet refuge and slipped in.  There was always service morning
and evening for those who could spare time to attend; and though the
worshipers were always few, yet, as the vicar said, "they could pray
for everybody, and the Father was so gracious that if only two or
three were met together it would please Him."

When Bryda went in there was nobody in the building but an old man,
who had just risen and was going out on tiptoe, with the sunshine
from a painted window on his bent, white head.  Bryda felt sorry for
him, he seemed so old and feeble; she would have been still more
sorry had she known that it was the evil doing of his two sons, and
even of his daughter (for he was Moll Dawson's old father), that made
him look old and bent before his time; sounds of quarreling were so
often heard from the uncomfortable cottage he called home that he
often escaped to the quiet church.  There he would sit by the hour,
sometimes with tears rolling slowly down his furrowed cheeks, and
then go home very weary, for when we are young we are not much the
worse for "a good cry," but old people's tears are few and bitter.

Bryda watched this old man go out, and then stood still, wondering
whether she should go in herself, when her attention was attracted by
a low sound, like that of some one sobbing quietly.  She listened;
the sound stopped a moment, then began again.  It was certainly
someone crying, and for a moment she felt half-frightened, for she
could not see any one.

Then a better thought came.  Perhaps she could try and comfort some
one who was unhappy, and that might be a little bit of the "Lord's
work."  She had once heard her mother say that a child was sometimes
the best of all earthly comforters.

So very quietly she stole up the side aisle, and there, behind a
pillar, she found--Beppo!

Yes, poor little Beppo!  Crouched on the ground, half-kneeling,
leaning against the cold pillar, the poor child with passionate sobs
seemed to be pouring out all his heart.  His great black eyes were
fixed on a beautiful painted window opposite.  This window had been
put in to the memory of a very good and charitable young lady, whose
early death had been deeply mourned by every one who knew her, and it
showed a lovely figure, with angel's wings, and a face of pity,
gently raising a sick child, and looking at him tenderly.

Poor little Beppo, alone and lonely, had crept into the church, and
gazing long on the beautiful window, had presently thought the kind
face was watching him with pity.

He was in bitter grief, for his dearly-loved mother had been trying
to tell him she would soon go away never to return.  She had
succeeded only too well, for the poor child, when at last he
understood, brushing past kind old Roger, rushed from the house to
the church where he could be alone.  In his own country the church is
a refuge for the sorrowful, always open for any one who will enter;
so in this strange land he naturally sought the old gray building.

Poor little boy! he was very young and very ignorant, and he had been
taught to ask for, and to hope for, the help of saints and angels.
The doctor could do little for his mother; Roger, kind as he was,
could not save her; and poor little Beppo, wild with grief, and in
the midst of strangers who could scarcely understand what he said,
threw himself before this lovely figure in the window, and thought
that at last he had found a friend to help him.

All this Bryda learned, but really it was rather difficult.  She
could not "make up" Italian that Beppo would understand, in the easy
way in which she and Maurice Grey made up Latin to talk to each other
when they played at Charon's boat.

Then Beppo's English was very odd, and his story was so often
interrupted by sobs, that quite a long time had passed before the
little comforter was able to make out the younger child's trouble,
and to understand that he had been talking to the angel in the
beautiful window when she found him.

[Illustration: (Bryda and Beppo)]

Little Bryda was sadly puzzled.  How was she to comfort Beppo?  What
could she say?

She could not tell him to hope his mother would get better.  That the
doctor said could never be.  Could she comfort Beppo with a lie?  No,
never!

She could not say the angel would do the poor dying woman good.  The
angel was very beautiful, but after all she was only made of glass
and paint.

So, after looking sadly at Beppo's tear-stained face and little
drooping figure, all she could, say was:

"Oh, Beppo!  I am so sorry!"

And with that she threw her arms round him, and together the two
children cried, till Beppo's sobs came more gently.  This little
English girl was sorry because he was unhappy.  After all he was not
so lonely!

"Children!" said a voice near them, so near that both started and
looked up.  Bryda sprang to her feet, and held Beppo by the hand,
feeling as if they were both likely to be scolded for making the
church a place to cry in.

But there was no anger on the loving, kind face of the old vicar, who
stood before them, only great pity for whatever trouble had caused
these tears.  The Good Shepherd, his Master, cares as much for the
pains of His lambs as for those of His most prized sheep, and His
messenger would give as much care to these two children as to the
greatest people in the land.

Beckoning them to follow, he went quietly down the aisle and out into
the churchyard; there, taking a hand of each, he led them to a seat
that was placed under a spreading tree among the graves.

"Now tell me all about it," he said kindly; and Bryda forgot to be
shy as she looked into his face, and soon told all Beppo's story
while the little boy looked with wide black eyes, that had no tears
in them now, at his new friends, the old clergyman and the little
girl.

"I see, I see!" said Mr. Joyce, for that was the vicar's name.

"And now, Beppo, can you understand if I speak English? because then,
if I talk to you, this young lady will understand too."

Beppo nodded his head.

Mr. Joyce went on: "There was once a little boy, no matter how long
ago, whose little sister was very ill--so ill that the doctor said
there was no hope that she could live many days.  Now in the country
where these children lived it was always believed that if any mortal
could get one leaf from the Tree of Life, that grew in the garden of
God, every illness would be cured at once.  But no one had ever tried
to get this leaf, because the journey was steep and rough to the
gates of the garden, and because an Angel stood there to keep the
gate and would let no one pass.  But this little boy loved his sister
so well--as well, I think, as Beppo loves his mother."

Beppo's dark eyes filled with tears again, and the vicar laid a hand
gently on his shoulder.

"So well that he could not have loved her more if he had tried with
all his might.  And, when all other hope seemed gone, he said, 'I
will go, I will beg of the Angel at the gate to let me in for one
moment, or to give me a leaf, only one leaf, from the Tree.'

"So he went by the long, rough way, till in the golden sunset he
stood before that great Angel, and trembling made his request.

"'None can enter this garden but those children of the King for whom
He has sent, that they may be with Him.  I can let no other enter,'
answered the Angel.

"'But one leaf,' prayed the child, 'one little leaf to cure my
sister.  The King will not be angry!'"

"And as he spoke he could hear, though he could not see into the
garden, the Tree rustling gently, and the birds among the branches
warbling the praises of the King of Glory.

"Only one leaf, and there were so many on the tree!  'The King, the
loving Father, cannot wish that my poor little sister should have to
suffer so, and then die and leave me all alone!  Have pity upon me,
great Angel, it is such a little thing I ask!' entreated the child.

"But the Angel looked down upon him with deep love and pity in his
eyes.

"'The King has sent my brother, the Angel of Death, to bring your
sister to Him.  She shall dwell forever in the light of His smile.
If you are allowed to keep her, will you promise me to take care that
she shall never again lie tossing on a sick bed?'

"'How can I?' said the child, wondering.  'Not even the wisest
physicians can always heal diseases at once.'

"'Then will you promise that she shall never be unhappy? never do
wrong, and suffer shame and sorrow? never be cold, hungry, tired?
that no one shall speak to her harshly?' asked the Angel.

"'Not if I can help it,' answered the child.  'But perhaps I could
not always make her happy, even when I am grown up.'

"'Then the world where you want to keep her is rather a sad place,'
the Angel said gently.  'Now I will open the gate a little, and you
shall look in for a moment, and if you still wish it, my child, I
will ask myself that you may have a leaf from the Tree of Life, that
your sister may stay upon earth with you.'

"So the Angel who kept the golden gate opened it a very little way,
and as the mighty door rolled back for a moment, the child could see
into the Land where by the river stands the Tree of Life, and where
those who are counted worthy walk forever in white--where they need
no candle, neither light of the sun, because the smile of God is the
light of that wonderful place, and His servants shall serve Him, and
no tongue can tell the happiness that is theirs forever and ever."

"Did the little boy see right into heaven?" asked Bryda, in a low
tone.  "Oh, do tell us what he saw!"

"I cannot tell you what he saw," answered the vicar; "you and I,
little Bryda, have to wait awhile, it may be for me a very little
while, trusting that the Father will in His mercy, for His Son's
sake, give us a place there.  But this I will tell you, that the
child turned toward the beautiful Angel with eyes full of wonder and
surprise.

"'I will not ask it now,' he said; 'I think there is no friend so
kind as the Angel of Death, who seems to us so dreadful.  Oh, I wish
he would take me, too!'  And the Angel answered:

"'When all the lessons which the Father desires you to learn in His
school, which is called the Earth, are learned; when the little piece
of His great work that is meant for your hands is finished, then the
Angel will come for you too, my child, if only you are true and
faithful.'

"And the child turned away and went back under the stars, that were
like eyes of angels watching him, back from the golden gates to his
home in the world.  And as he went a golden ray shot once across his
path, and brought a sound of wonderful music, such as he had never
heard.  And he knew that the golden gates had opened, and his sister
had passed in.  On a little bed at home lay her body, white and
still, but he knew that it was only the dress she had worn in the
world.  And the child was comforted."

And Beppo was comforted too.  As the vicar spoke, he imagined a
country more beautiful than his own Italy, where golden oranges hang
in the dark-green leaves, and the wonderful blue sea sleeps under the
blue sky, but where people are sick and sorrowful as they are
everywhere in the world.  His dear mother would go to that wonderful
place, so beautiful that even this wise gentleman could not tell him
exactly what it was like.  She would never cough, nor be tired nor
hungry again!

But the bells began to ring for service.

"Come, Beppo, I will take you home," said Mr. Joyce; and Bryda said
good-by to both, and went slowly home along the shrubbery path.

This has been a sad chapter; but you see there are sad parts even in
the lives of children; and if Bryda was not in quite such wild
spirits as usual, she certainly did not feel unhappy that evening,
when, sitting by Cousin Salome's couch, she told her all that had
happened.

"Don't you think," said kind Salome, "that if you were to bring Beppo
here in the afternoon, Bryda, you and I could teach him a little
about a better Friend than his angel in the window, a Friend Who can
and will help him, and Who will never die and leave him, never change
and forget him?"

And Bryda very gladly promised to bring Beppo next day.




CHAPTER XI.

DREADFULLY FRIGHTENED.

"Miss Bryda," said Uncle Jack at breakfast next morning, "if you knew
what I know you would be a good deal wiser than you are now."

"I dare say I should, Uncle Jack," answered Bryda, pouting.  "I
suppose you mean if I knew all the dates of all the Norman kings, and
could speak French without any mistakes, and--and--several other
things."

"Such as how many beans make five? and that useful kind of thing to
know, I suppose?  But if I were a little girl, and any one told me
the very nice piece of news which I think I had better not tell you,
why, I should really and truly, I do believe, be obliged to get up
and give the person a kiss.  Especially if he was young and very
handsome!" added Uncle Jack, twirling his mustache, and looking very
seriously at his niece.  Evidently the only chance of getting this
news was to get up and give him a kiss, which Bryda did, and both she
and Uncle Jack were promptly scolded by grandmother, who said that in
_her_ young days she used to sit still at breakfast till every one
had finished.

Uncle Jack begged her pardon at once, very politely indeed, and then
told Bryda his piece of news.

"I know a field, a very little way off, where there is a hedge simply
crawling with blackberries."

Grandmother was a little deaf, so she did not hear what he said quite
lightly, and with a little scream she said:

"Crawling with black beetles!  Oh, John! for pity's sake have them
all killed at once!"

"I will, mother, dear, and they shall be made into jelly for your
dinner," said Uncle Jack, laughing.

But the dear old lady grew quite excited about the black beetles, and
he had with some trouble to explain that a hedge crawling with
blackberries was a way of speaking that he had invented to make Bryda
laugh.  "She so seldom does laugh, poor child!" he said.

Well, Uncle Jack was going to shoot this morning, and he would take
Bryda to the blackberry hedge, and leave her there till he came back
again.

So he did; and Bryda, as she marched off with a big basket on her
arm, beside Uncle Jack with a gun, made a little request.

"Might Beppo come and help her?  It would be a very little round to
pass old Roger's cottage, Bryda would like it so."

"Why, what a little coax it is!" said Uncle Jack; "and, pray, who is
Beppo?"

Bryda soon explained, telling Uncle Jack all about the little boy who
so much interested her and his poor mother.

"And he's such a nice boy," she ended.  "He has curly hair, and big
black eyes, and speaks such very funny English."

"He must be a nice little boy with all those charms!" laughed Uncle
Jack.  And to Roger's cottage they went.

Roger was at home, and so was his cat.  Uncle Jack began to talk to
the old man.  Bryda, after looking round for Beppo, seized the cat,
and sat down on a stool to pretend it was a baby, and put it to
sleep, with her eyes continually fixed on the door of the Italian
woman's room.

[Illustration: Bryda after looking round for Beppo, seized the cat.]

Into this room Uncle Jack went presently, and Bryda was left alone
with Roger.  Now was the time to ask him about Liz and his palace
home, and if he was not sorry Liz had died before he could go there.

"Roger," she asked, not quite knowing how to begin, "when did you say
you were going home?"

"As soon as I've finished the bit o' work I've had set me here,
missy.  Maybe if I'd made fewer mistakes over it I'd be there by now.
It's, oh! my clumsy hands, never fit to touch it at all!"

"Do you mean your carpentering?" asked Bryda, wondering.

"Not quite that, Miss Bryda," answered the old man, looking away
through the little window.  "It's weaving work more than carpentering
work, making a bit of the Bride's beautiful marriage dress.  There's
a-many weavers set to that work, missy--ay, many they are!  And some
waste the materials and do naught; an' some put gold and silver
thread into the pattern anyhow, an' it's all mixed and spoiled.  But
there's some good workers weave the bright threads and the dull
threads as they were meant to be, and work real pearls on it, and
seldom make a fault.  That's how my Liz worked; but I've been a
clumsy one--ah, sad and clumsy old Roger's been all his life!"

"When will the wedding be, Roger, and where?  Is it to be in the old
church here?"

Roger shook his head.

"When will the dress be finished, missy, the Bride's beautiful dress
that's so long a-makin'?  An' where will----"

Here Roger was interrupted, much to Bryda's grief, for Uncle Jack
came out of the sick-room, looking much less cheerful than when he
went in, and leading Beppo by the hand.  He spoke in a low tone to
Roger, to whom Bryda saw him give money, and wondered why he should,
when the old man was, she believed, so rich already.  Then beckoning
to Bryda, he left the cottage.

"Now, Beppo, you shall go and play with this young lady.  Will you be
very good?" he asked, outside.

"Oh, si, si!  I mean say, yes, sir!" answered the little Italian,
looking brightly at Bryda, who seemed to him now quite an old friend,
and speaking his queer English.

So Uncle Jack led them both into his blackberry field, which was
quite as good as he had said.

"It's simply beautiful!" Bryda said to Uncle Jack as he went away,
promising to return by and by and fetch them.

Left alone, the two children were happy enough, and their tongues
wagged very fast indeed.  Beppo told his little companion about his
own country, where oranges, hanging on dark-green trees, might be had
for the trouble of gathering; and about beautiful vineyards, with
clusters of white and purple grapes, and the merry, merry
vintage-time.  Ah! if they could go back to Italy again, he was sure
his dear, dear mother would be quite well again!  His father was
dead, and the mother grew poorer and poorer in her own country, and
at last she dreamed night after night that if she would go north to
England she would be able to get money for herself and her boy, and
come home quite rich.  But it was not so; people did not seem to like
barrel-organs much, and the little money his mother had had all gone
to buy this instrument.

Often they had been sent from houses with angry words; often they had
nowhere to sleep; often they had nothing to eat.

Bryda had never known real hunger.  She had known how pleasant it was
to come in tired and hungry after a long expedition, and how
delicious bread and butter tasted then, and jam! but to ache with
hunger, and, when ready to faint, not to have any food, how terrible
that must be!

But very soon both Bryda and Beppo forgot that there ever had been
any troubles in the world, they were so busy and so happy with the
blackberries.

What a delightful amusement blackberry hunting is!  To see the basket
filling fast with the fat, sweet, well-flavored berries; to eat one
after another, because this one is crushed or that one is too nice to
part with, or a third may have a different flavor since it grows on
another bush--how nice it is!  We eat, and chatter, and eat again,
till fingers and mouths are stained a dark-red color; and how we
laugh and make fun!  Only one thing vexes us--that is, that the very
nicest, finest fellows always _will_ grow right up at the top of the
hedge, just out of reach even of our longest stick!  They would be so
nice; but very often, after struggling a good deal, scratching faces
and hands, and getting wet feet by slipping into the ditch, we have
to give it up and own ourselves beaten.

Never mind! we have generally quite enough for the jam or the
puddings we want to make, and in great triumph we go home, each
boasting of having gathered most!

So Bryda and Beppo amused themselves, and wandered on at last to the
other end of the field.  Here there was a gate leading into another
field, where was a very high hedge with what seemed to the children
the best blackberries they had seen.

[Illustration: Bryda and Beppo amused themselves wandering about the
field.]

In a moment they were through the bars of the high gate and in the
field.  Just as they entered it a loud shout came from before them;
and Bryda, looking across the field, saw the terrible Moll Dawson
waving her hands and shouting to them.

Terrified, she caught Beppo's hand, and dragged him further into the
field.  On the side where the blackberries were there were also some
trees, and beyond was a little wood.  They might hide in this, and be
safe.  If Moll Dawson found them what would she not do?  She might
take all their blackberries.  She might ill-treat them in some
dreadful way.  She was so big and strong, and there was no help near.
What might she not do?

So Bryda and her companion, poor Beppo! who was frightened because
she was frightened--though he did not in the least know why--these
two fled further into the field, while Moll Dawson still beckoned and
called.

Bryda, seeing that the girl did not come into the field, took courage
a little, and looked about her.  Oh, terror! if she was frightened
before, she was now as if rooted to the ground with fear.

Sullenly coming toward the poor children, sniffing violently as he
came, and glaring at them with wicked eyes, was an immense bull!

"Run, Beppo!" screamed Bryda.  Beppo looked at her a moment.  "Run!
I am coming!" she cried; and Beppo was off like the wind toward the
gate where Moll Dawson beckoned.

Bryda, looking round a moment, saw a great board, with "Beware of the
Bull!" nailed against a tree in the middle of the field.

Only for a moment she looked.  Was there any hope of her being able
to climb a tree?  Which gate was nearest?  The dreadful animal was
some little way off.  If Bryda ran with Beppo she might escape.  In a
second she was off; but, alas! alas! the bull was after her.

He came on bellowing and roaring.

Beppo was safe.  He reached the gate before Bryda; but she, rushing
half-blind with terror, tripped as the fierce animal was close behind
her, and with a wild shriek fell flat on her face a yard or two from
the gate.




CHAPTER XII.

SOME USE FOR MOLL.

Flat on your face, and a raging bull coming after you!  That is a
terrible position!  It is never wise to run races with a bull, or a
horse, or a greyhound, or anything else that has four legs--except,
perhaps, a very fat prize pig, or the kitchen table.  What can you,
with two legs, do against four legs?

Besides, poor Bryda felt that there was no one to help her; there was
only Moll Dawson near, of whom she was nearly as much afraid as she
was of the bull; and poor little helpless Beppo, whose eyes grew,
like those of the dog in the fairy tale, as big as saucers with
terror, as he stood, panting but safe, on the right side of the gate.

Stay! there was one Friend, to whom Bryda had long ago learned at her
mother's knee to look for help.  She had, indeed, never been in any
such danger before, but mother had, and many a time she had told
Bryda of the time of peril when the ship was said to be about to go
down on the broad Atlantic, and no help was near--no human help, at
least.  And the chaplain gathered together all who could or would
come, and cried to Him Who holds the seas in the hollow of His hand.

"In the midst of life we are in death: of whom may we seek for
succor, but of Thee, O Lord? ... Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of
our hearts; shut not Thy merciful ears unto our prayer; but spare us,
Lord most holy, O God most mighty, O holy and merciful Saviour!"

So the chaplain prayed, and the sea went down, as once did the waves
of Galilee when the Lord of winds and waves willed it, and mother and
all the shipload were saved.  And so Bryda cried to the loving
Saviour as she fell, and to her, too, came help in the way she least
expected.  For as the bull with angry red eyes and dreadful sharp
horns had nearly reached her, when all hope seemed gone, and she had
not strength to try and rise, a shawl deftly thrown fell right over
the furious animal's head, making him stop and then turn round,
bellowing frantically, as if he meant to ask who dared to interfere
in this way with his great will and pleasure, which was to toss an
insignificant child.  There were plenty of children in the world,
pray why should he not toss one if he so pleased? he seemed to ask.

While his majesty was expressing something of this sort very noisily,
a strong hand rather roughly seized the fallen Bryda, picked her up,
and dragged her over or through--she never knew which--the great,
strong, five-barred gate, where Beppo stood already, and watched,
white with terror, having had time to take breath.

Bryda was not white, she was red-hot and breathless, and it was
several seconds before she could collect her scattered wits enough to
see the bull tearing the shawl to pieces, with a strong wall and gate
between himself and her, and also to see that her preserver was no
other than that great object of her terror, Moll Dawson.

"Now then," said Moll roughly, as she tried to pinch Bryda's hat into
shape again.  "You're a foolish one, you are.  Why didn't you stop
when you heard me screechin'?"

"Because--I--because--" stammered Bryda, who felt she could not tell
Moll that the "screechin'" had made her run as fast as possible in
the other direction from that Moll intended.

The girl burst into a loud laugh.  "You're a softy, upon my word!  So
you thought I'd eat yer blackberries and yer blessed selves arter
them!  But it was out of the fryin'-pan into the fire this time, and
no mistake.  Oh, I see ye blushing!  Tell Moll Dawson no stories;
she's too 'cute for the likes o' you."

"I don't want to tell stories," said poor Bryda, with tears in her
eyes.  "Indeed, indeed I am grateful.  That bull would have torn me
to pieces, as he is tearing your shawl."

And Bryda turned quite sick at the sight of the great brute stamping
on fragments of the shawl, then, tearing them afresh with his horns,
bellowing all the time as if it was quite an amusement to destroy
something.

"I shall ask grannie to give me a new shawl for you, Moll," said
Bryda.

"Don't trouble your head, child; it's only a old rag, bless you.  So
soon as I can earn a bit o' money I'll have a jacket wi' beads all
over, like a young lady.  Not as that they'll take me for a lady--not
even the boys at the factory.  Give me that pretty blue silk
handkerchief on your neck," went on Moll, with a sudden change of
tone.  This was a command rather than a request, to judge by the tone
in which it was spoken; but Bryda hesitated--mother had given it to
her just before she went away.

The girl, seeing she hesitated, laughed again loud and bitterly--a
laugh without merriment.

"Oh! keep your things to yourself!  I want none of them!  Silk
handkerchiefs are not for the likes of me, nor nothin' else that's
good--only sharp words and crooked looks."  Here Moll threw herself
down on the nearest bank, and tore some white queen-daisies to bits.

"Here, take it, Moll!" said Bryda, as she snatched off her
handkerchief.  "I am sure you are welcome to it, and anything else I
have;" and with a gentle coaxing way she tied the scarf round Moll
Dawson's neck.  The rough girl looked more gracious; she bent her
neck to try and catch a glimpse of this bit of finery, then looked up
at Bryda again.

[Illustration: (Bryda giving Moll her handkerchief)]

"You've got a gran, too!  I've seen her.  Does she beat you very
often?" was her next remark.

Bryda and Beppo both stared open-mouthed at this question.
Grandmother would as soon think of----

"Never!" said Bryda at last, very decidedly.

"I suppose she's kind, then?"

Bryda nodded expressively,

"Well, my gran ain't," pursued poor Moll.  "Beats us with the poker,
for all she pretended to be so ill and weak when you brought soup o'
Sunday, missy.  We're a bad lot, we are, all but father; he'd be good
if he could, I know."

"Oh, Moll!" said Bryda, answering the girl's miserable tone as much
as her words, "why don't you try and be good?"

"I suppose you're good?" said the girl; "it is not hard for such as
you to keep straight."

"Indeed, I am not good," cried truthful Bryda, remembering a great
many faults at once.  "I'm so often in mischief or some trouble that
Uncle Jack says I live in a jar of mixed pickles.  But I do want to
be good for all that."

"So you will some day, when you're a fine lady.  And, I warrant,
you're not real bad now.  And you'd not be frightened of me any
more?" added Moll sadly, looking up at her.

"No, indeed; we'd be fond of you--wouldn't we, Beppo?" said Bryda
eagerly.

Beppo nodded and said, "Yes, yes."  He was proud of his knowledge of
English, such as it was.

"No one's fond of me," said Moll, still more sadly.  "Jim used to be
in a fashion, but he wouldn't give his little finger to save me from
drowning.  An' I'm too wicked for father to love me--or any one else
either."

Bryda's eyes filled with tears.  "God loves you, Moll," she whispered
gently.

But Moll shook her head.  "No, He don't.  God Almighty may care for
the gentlefolks--seems like it.  But He don't care for such as us."

"Indeed, He does," said Bryda earnestly, quite sure this time that
there was no doubt of what she said being true.  "See how he has
cared for Beppo and his mother!"

"Did He tell the old carpenter to be good to them?" asked Moll
thoughtfully.  "Well, it's not much a poor man like him can do."

"Oh! he's not a poor man," burst out Bryda.  "He's a prince really;
he told me so.  And his Father's a very great King, and will take him
to live in a palace some day soon."

"And he have gold, much gold, hid safe from de tieves," added Beppo
in his broken English.  He and Bryda were sitting on the bank now
beside Moll Dawson.

"Eh!" said Moll; "whoever would have thought it."

"It's quite true," said Bryda, and went on to tell all about Roger's
inheritance.  She was just going on to tell all about his cat, and
the funny story of all the cats with excellent "characters," when
Uncle Jack's voice was heard in the blackberry field calling her.

At this sound Moll Dawson sprang up, nodded a hasty farewell, and
scrambled through a small breach in the hedge behind, vanishing in a
moment, in spite of Bryda's entreaties to her to stay, and let Uncle
Jack hear how she had saved them.

Uncle Jack's cheerful brown face grew very white when he heard the
story.

"Say nothing to the grannies, Bryda," he said.  "Not because it is
right to have secrets, little maid; but because grandmother is too
old and weak to hear about anything that would frighten her.  But you
and I will see what we can do for Moll Dawson, and we will ask Cousin
Salome's advice, eh?"

Poor Moll Dawson!  She had done one good deed that day.  It was a
pity that in the afternoon she should do, though not intentionally,
some sad harm.

Her brother Jim worked as garden-boy with Mr. Seymour (that was the
name of Bryda's grandfather).  Moll, roaming idly about, met him as
he came from work in the evening, and in her careless, gossiping way
began to tell him all that Bryda had said about old Roger's store of
treasure, which Moll said was money he had hidden away somewhere in
his poor little cottage, like a miser.

For Bryda did not yet understand, what is perhaps plain to any one
reading this, that the old man, accustomed as he was to live alone,
thought so much of the heavenly country where he hoped to go, and of
the many mansions in the Father's house, that he talked of them in a
way that seemed to the child to mean things on earth.  So the
precious treasure of the love of Christ, and of the hope that is in
Him, seemed to little Bryda to be perishing treasures of earth--money
and jewels.  And what Bryda had told Moll, Moll repeated, with
improvements of her own, to her bad brother.

"Ah! ah!" said Jim; "he's a chicken worth plucking--eh, Moll?  A
knock on the old boy's head, if he objects, and then share and share
alike for you and me."

"You leave him alone, Jim," she answered; for the longing to be
better was working in the poor girl's darkened mind, even as the
spirit of God rested on the earth when it was "without form and
void."  Christ, who died for poor Moll, was calling gently, and the
hard heart softened a little.

"Boo," said Jim, with a hideous grimace "You're afraid o' being found
out.  Split on me and tell the police, will you?  Yah, that's like a
woman."

"I'll not have it, Jim," went on Moll steadily.  "I'm not afraid,
that you know right well: I'm a better thief than you by a long way,
and never was caught yet; but I'll have naught to do with this--nor
you either."

"We'll see," said Jim, and held his tongue.




CHAPTER XIII.

MORE ABOUT BEPPO.

Bryda was not allowed to go alone to the village again, since her
nurse had told granny she was missing on that unfortunate Sunday
afternoon, when the whole household had turned out in pursuit of her.
She had therefore promised Beppo to meet him in the church or
churchyard at half-past five, and take him to Cousin Salome.

For the second time she found the poor little Italian in bitter
grief.  It happened that a great dark bank of clouds had covered the
sky for a great part of the day, and the church inside was so dark
that the sexton thought it well to light up the building before the
short service, which was every evening during summer at six, and in
winter much earlier.

Tonight the choir were practicing before service, so when Beppo came
to the church at half-past five, to meet his little friend, the
building was lighted up.  He came to see his beautiful angel again to
tell her, whom he still thought a great and powerful friend, all that
had happened to him.  But with the darkness outside and the bright
lights within, all the colors had faded out of the window, so that,
as any one who goes into a lighted church by night can see, there was
only a dark blank space where the beautiful angel had stood.  And the
passionate little southern boy said to him self that his friend had
forsaken him, that she was gone and would never come back again.

Bryda felt that somehow he was quite wrong, but how was she to
explain, or to comfort him?

First she told him his angel was not gone, but had only faded from
his sight, and that with daylight he would find her again.  But as at
this he only sobbed afresh, and said she _was_ gone, he could not see
her, so she must be gone, Bryda tried to explain that his friend was
no real person but only a beautiful picture.  This only made him very
indignant; he knew angels took care of people, his mother had often
told him so; did Bryda mean to tell him there were no angels?

Then Bryda, not knowing how to meet these questions, proposed that he
should come with her at once to Cousin Salome; and, hand in hand, the
two children went up the long shrubbery walk to find her.

Salome greeted them with her own bright smile, and made Beppo sit on
a low stool by her side.  Soon the black eyes grew very bright and
round, when the child found that this English lady had seen his own
beautiful Italy, and seemed to love it nearly as well as he did.

Then, when Cousin Salome began to speak to him in Italian, Beppo
fairly jumped off his stool and clapped his hands with delight.

Here was a friend for him!  Until one has gone to a strange country
and there been very lonely and sorrowful, like poor little Beppo, it
is not easy to understand the delight that he felt at hearing his own
language spoken again.

After a little time Bryda began to tell Cousin Salome all about
Beppo's troubles, and especially the last, which seemed to the poor
little boy a very great one.

"No, Beppo, your beautiful angel is not gone," she answered, "she is
only hidden from you for a time by the darkness.  But I will tell you
both, dear children, what this little grief of Beppo's is like; and
we can make it a sort of parable.  Bryda, you know what a parable is?"

"A story that means something, isn't it?" said Bryda.

"Yes, dear.  Well, when we are young, our life is like a bright
painted window, very lovely to look at.  But supposing our sky gets
dark, and some great trouble comes up like the night----"

"Something like your illness, cousin?" said Bryda gently.

Cousin Salome smiled.

"Yes, perhaps, dear.  Or like Beppo's great trouble, when his mother
told him she must go and be with God, and leave him alone.  That
makes life seem very dark, doesn't it, Beppo?"

Beppo nodded his head; he could not speak, because a great lump came
up in his throat and made him feel as if he must choke.

"Well, when the night is over," went on Salome, "and the kind, bright
sun comes back again, our life looks beautiful again.  But what do
people do when the church gets dark, Beppo?"

"Light de lamps," said Beppo quickly.

"Ah, yes! that is it!  Light the lamps, and then we forget all about
the darkness outside.  Inside there is warmth and light and
brightness, and sweet hymns go up to the Great White Throne of God.
And life is beautiful after all, though it is a little more sad and
solemn, as Beppo feels it now."

Then Cousin Salome went on to talk to Beppo in Italian about a Friend
who never would forsake him, and Who was always near, though the dim
eyes of men cannot see Him; of One far more lovely and loving than
the angels, who were only servants in that great House of the
Father's, in which heaven and and earth are contained.  Only
servants; but He--this Friend Who was willing to be always Beppo's
friend, if the child would look to Him and trust Him--He was the Son
of the House, and all things were His.

Bryda listened, though she could not understand the language; and as
she listened she thought she knew the use of lessons.

"Lessons and doses," she had said, "were supposed to do people good;"
and now she saw, at all events, one use of lessons.  "If I could talk
Italian to Beppo, how nice it would be!"

And to herself she resolved that when the new governess came--it was
to be very soon now--she would work harder than ever before, even
over lists of dates.  After all she might find out some day that
there was a use for those, too!

Beppo listened as to one who told him some strange new thing.  He had
been taught by his mother much about angels watching over him with
beautiful shining wings; but very little, almost nothing, about the
loving Saviour Who was once a little boy like himself, and Who grew
up to be the Friend and Helper of any one who was in distress, and to
Whom the little troubles of His little children were as important as
the great and bitter griefs that crush the hearts of men.

Poor little boy! he drank in every word, with great eyes fixed on
Cousin Salome's face, and it seemed to him, as it had seemed to Bryda
while she listened to the vicar's sermon, that there never could be
anything half so sweet as trying to please this loving Lord Jesus,
Who was such a kind Friend.

But the invalid began to grow tired, and Bryda saw that she could not
talk much longer.  So she got up suddenly, and carried off Beppo, and
Cousin Salome was left to her needful rest.

It was settled first of all, though, that Bryda should give Beppo
lessons in reading every day.

"Reading and weeding!" said Uncle Jack.  "I have made love to Hayes
the gardener, and he has promised to let Beppo come and weed in the
garden; and so the little chap can earn something, and not feel quite
such a burden on old Roger."

Beppo's mother was not to be long a burden on any one.  One night,
while Beppo slept, and while it seemed that she slept, too, old
Roger, stealing in on tiptoe, found that she was indeed asleep,
wrapped in that last long sleep which no evil dreams disturb.  She
would never be hungry, or thirsty, or tired again, for God had taken
His child, who, though ignorant enough, had been faithful to Him, to
that rest of which we say, "He giveth His beloved sleep."

Close by that grave, with the one word "Liz," they made another, and
on that there was only one word, too--"Speranza."

[Illustration: Only one word, too--"Speranza."]

Very few of the village people knew what Cousin Salome told Bryda,
that the beautiful name of the poor Italian meant "Hope."

Old Roger would not part with Beppo.  He was a lonesome old man, he
said, and it would be a charity to let the boy stay with him.  Beppo
could weed and learn to read for the present, and as soon as he knew
the language better he could go to school in the village.  Every one
was well pleased with the plan, for, though some of the village
people thought old Roger rather odd, from the way he had of talking
about heaven as if it were quite near, and of Bible people as if they
were still alive, yet no one doubted his goodness; and kind Cousin
Salome promised to pay for Beppo's schooling.  So it seemed that the
poor little boy, after his long wanderings, would have a happy home
and kind friends, and would soon forget his troubles.  Bryda was at
first very patient with her pupil, who, to do him justice, was not
stupid; but what puzzled her most was that it did not seem natural to
the Italian child to say the English words as she did.

Uncle Jack, coming one day into the room where these lessons were
going on, found Beppo with tearful eyes, while Bryda appeared to have
at that moment thrown the reading-book to the other end of the room,
where it lay looking like a book in disgrace in the corner, gaping
wide open, with a leaf or two scattered on the way, for it was an old
one.

[Illustration: Bryda appeared to have thrown the reading book to the
other end of the room.]

"What is this noise about?" said Uncle Jack, with a face of
amusement; "what's the matter now?"

"Beppo's _too_ stupid, Uncle Jack--and I--I lost patience."

"Lost, a valuable temper," said Uncle Jack, with a serious face; "at
least I mean 'Lost, a good temper, of no value to any one but the
owner.  Is very cheerful, and marked with a capital B.  The finder,
if poor, shall be handsomely rewarded on bringing it to----'

"_Don't_, Uncle Jack!"  Bryda stood on tiptoe and put her hands over
his mouth, while Beppo picked up the book and put in the scattered
leaves.  "But really I can't make him understand some things.  He
spells c-a-t, and then calls it 'cart,' and when at last I get him to
say 'cat,' he goes on m-a-t, 'mart!'

"I suppose Miss Quillnib never had any such worries in teaching
Bryda?" said Uncle Jack slyly.  Bryda looked a little ashamed.

"But do you know that it is natural to him to say cart and mart
instead of cat and mat, and you will have to teach him gradually that
English does not sound like Italian, Bryda?  Now suppose, by way of
variety, that _you_ say this simple little sentence after me:

"'Aldiborontiphoscophornio!--where left you Chrononhotonthologos?"
"'Aldiboronti'--I don't know any more!"

"_That's_ not English, Uncle Jack!"

"Well, I assure you it comes out of an English play.  So, naturally,
the actor has to say it.  Try something easier:

  "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepper;
  A peck of pickled pepper Peter Piper picked.
  If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepper,
  Where's the peck of pickled pepper Peter Piper picked?"


"Which of us three will say that very fast three times without a
mistake?"

They all tried, and all failed, and the lesson ended in such shouts
of laughter that both the grannies hobbled in--helping each other--to
see what the fun was.




CHAPTER XIV.

BEPPO IN TROUBLE.

A far worse trouble than "cat" or "mat" came to poor Beppo a few days
afterward.  He worked away diligently and steadily in the garden and
was always delighted to bring home his little earnings--six silver
shillings every week--and give them to old Roger.  Hayes, the
gardener, was kind to him, and so was every one, except Jim Dawson,
who also worked in the garden.

But then, Jim Dawson was kind to no one, not even to his sister Moll,
for whom he seemed to have a sort of rough affection.  Still, Jim
Dawson did his work well enough; he was very strong and got through a
good deal, if he _did_ idle sometimes when Hayes' back was turned.
So Hayes was glad to have him.

Now Hayes had a peach tree of which he was particularly proud.  It
was like his child to him, for he had grown it from a very little
thing, and had watched it day by day in the spring, when its
beautiful pink buds became pinky-white flowers, and then dropped, and
gave way to little hard balls, green and round, that would one day be
peaches.  He had taken off some of these, so that the rest might be
finer, and now there were just four beautiful velvet peaches on the
little tree.  Such beauties they were! and soon would come the
fruit-show; and how delightful it would be to see in the county paper
that "Mr. Hayes, head-gardener to Mr. Seymour, had the first prize
for a splendid dish of peaches grown out of doors!"

Every morning and every evening, and several times in the day, came
Mr. Hayes looking after those treasures of his.

Can you fancy what Mr. Hayes' good-tempered face looked like when one
day, about twelve o'clock, he came past, having already paid "his
babies" a visit once that morning and found only three?  Only three!
The finest of all was gone; neatly gathered from the tree; so that
there could be no suspicion of accident in the matter.  It was too
bad.

Stooping down, Mr. Hayes carefully examined the ground to see if
there were any traces of footsteps by which he could discover the
thief.

In one or two places the ground looked a little disturbed, as if some
one had hastily covered over the traces of steps with some loose
earth.  Certainly a cunning thief had been at work, and Mr. Hayes'
rage grew more and more violent; but his rage was quite useless.
Storm at the two boys, Jim and Beppo, he could, and he did; question
all the other gardeners, and the grooms, and John the coachman, and
the kitchenmaid, and the laundrymaid, and the girl who fed and
plucked the fowls; all this he did, but nothing could bring back his
peach, and every one seemed equally innocent in the matter.  Mr.
Hayes was very angry, and for two days he remained so, spending much
of his time in walking about that part of the garden, with his sharp
eyes very wide open, and a thick stick in his strong hand.

Woe betide the unlucky thief who had gone near the peach tree on
those days!

But by the third day Mr. Hayes' wrath had cooled a little; besides,
he had very good news from a brother in Australia by the morning
post; and so on that day he took a look at the three peaches that
were left, and then went away whistling "Rule Britannia!"  It was
about the only tune he knew, and he whistled it whenever things went
well.

It was a pity that a dark cloud should come up again that day over
the sunny landscape of Mr. Hayes' broad red face; but it is a fact
that, on coming again to visit his darlings, he found no longer
three, but only two; and under the brick wall were again traces of
steps carefully dusted over with earth, as before.

If Mr. Hayes had been angry before, he was now simply beside himself
with passion.  He did not storm, neither did he stamp this time--he
was too angry for that.

Striding along the garden walk, without any distinct idea of where he
meant to go or what to do, Mr. Hayes encountered Beppo, who rose up
from his weeding, and looked as if he were about to speak.  But the
child shrank from the furious face that looked down at him--shrank
away, and grew pale with fear.

Hayes looked at him steadily for a moment, then spoke fiercely,
though quietly, trying to control himself.  "Well, boy, what have you
to say for yourself?"

Guilt was clearly painted on Beppo's face, and in every line of his
trembling figure as he stammered out.  "P'ease--Mr. Haye--I--so
sorry.  Not--mean--do it, sir!

"Not mean!" answered Hayes in a voice like suppressed thunder.
"Sorry! what can your sorrow do, I'd like to know?  Do you know what
you have done? mischief that can never be mended!"

"Yes, sir," said Beppo humbly.

"Yes, sir!  No excuse!  You little foreign brat! you come along o'
me, and get the best thrashing you ever had.  Come on, I say!"

He seized Beppo by the collar, and marching him in front, strode
toward the garden tool-house.  There were plenty of sticks there that
would answer his purpose of severely punishing the wretched little
criminal, whose cries, moreover, would attract less notice there, he
thought.

Coming toward them, the angry man and his prisoner met Bryda, singing
merrily.

Her song soon stopped when she saw the poor little criminal in the
strong grasp of Mr. Hayes who was policeman, judge, jury, lawyers,
jailer, and executioner, all at once.

"What _is_ the matter?  What has he done?" she gasped, quite
frightened.

Hayes stopped.

"Done!  The little varmint!" giving Beppo a shake as he held him
still.  "Done, Miss Bryda!  Will he dare look you in the face again?
Stolen my peaches, two of them, one after the other--heartless,
greedy, thankless little monster as he is!  Stolen my peaches that I
hoped would get the prize--ay, he can't deny it!"

"I not stolen them!" cried Beppo, in bitter distress.  "Oh, Miss
Bryde!  I not--I never done _that_!  I often bad boy--never stole!
Never!  No!  No!  No!"

Bryda remembered the baker's roll, and quite believed him.  He was
hungry then, but he did not steal.

"Oh, Hayes!  Indeed, indeed, I am sure he is telling the truth!" she
said earnestly.  "Please don't be angry with him till you are quite
sure, at least."

"Lor', Miss Bryda," said the gardener impatiently, "you're that taken
up with the sly little rascal you don't believe butter would melt in
his mouth.  But he spoke up and said he was sorry when I taxed him
with it first.  It's only the sight of you makes him bold, thinking
you'll take his part through thick and thin.  A sneaking, lying
little thief!  Never does he do another day's work here!"

"Miss Bryde," said Beppo, with flashing eyes in which there were no
tears, "I not--I never did--not could--think I--steal--tell lies!  I
speak de truth now, and then, both, only I did think Mr. Hayes found
something else, and I did want tell him----"

Here Jim Dawson, who had been looking on at the little scene, stepped
up to Beppo suddenly, slipped his hand into Beppo's pocket, and drew
out a peach-stone.

Silence fell on the little group.  Bryda, distressed beyond words,
looked from one to the other.  Beppo, with a strange expression of
face, looked at Jim, who stood grinning; and Hayes, after looking at
the stone for some seconds, as if to be perfectly certain of Beppo's
crime, pushed his hand more firmly into the boy's collar, strode to
the garden-house, put him in, and said, before he closed the door,
"Now, my lad, it's for your good.  You bide there and think of the
flogging you'll get so soon as I've time to give it to you."

Locking the door on the outside, he strode away, with the key in his
pocket, leaving Beppo to his miserable expectations of the flogging
that he would get; no light punishment it would be from the heavy
hand of an angry man.

If Beppo was guilty, then miserable enough he was likely to be, with
the burdens of a theft and a lie on his mind, and the prospect of
punishment to come.

If, as he said, though appearances were against him, he was innocent,
then he need not be very miserable, for a good conscience would be
his companion, and the Friend of little children would send him
comfort.

Crouching down in a wretched little heap on the floor, he remained so
for some time, not crying, not trembling, but apparently thinking.
Then slowly rising, he knelt down in a corner, and, clasping his
hands, looked through the little window up to the blue sky.

He need not look to any beautiful angel now, whose help he used to
hope for.  He had another--better Friend, and quietly he said, half
aloud, "Kind Lord Jesus, don't forget Beppo.  I in great trouble,
Lord Jesus!"

Was he guilty, or not?  We shall see.




CHAPTER XV.

UP A TREE.

What did Bryda do when her little playmate was in such trouble?
Quite as miserable as if she herself were the criminal, she stood
still for a few minutes in the garden path.  Would there be any
chance of coaxing Hayes to forgive Beppo?  That was not very likely.
Mr. Hayes, with a face that was simply one frown all over, had walked
off in the other direction, and his very back frowned as she looked
after him.  No, she could not appease Hayes; but some one else might
persuade him that Beppo was not guilty.  Who could do this?  Should
Bryda go indoors and tell the grannies all about it?  That would not
be of much use.  It would take so long to make them understand; and
perhaps even then they would not wish to interfere.  Uncle Jack?  He
had gone out.  Cousin Salome would be very sorry; but she could not
come out and talk to Hayes.

There was old Roger!

Bryda would run off to him and soon get him to come up with her and
talk to the angry Hayes.  But she must be quick; she did not know how
soon Hayes might carry out his threat of coming back to punish the
poor little prisoner.

Bryda firmly believed he was innocent.  She did not understand why
Mr. Hayes said he had confessed to having stolen the peaches; if he
had done so she was sure it was from fright.

"And I am sure Hayes' face was enough to frighten any one," she said
to herself.

Without stopping to think any more, off Bryda ran to the village, as
fast as her feet could carry her.

She did not go by the shrubbery walk, but down the lane that led from
the bottom of the garden past Farmer Veitch's house.

This farm was about halfway between the garden and the village, and
Bryda, out of breath, walked slowly as she passed it.  To her great
terror she heard behind the hedge a low, deep growl.  That was Farmer
Veitch's bulldog, and he was known to be savage.

[Illustration: (Beppo praying)]

Poor Bryda was not as brave as she used to be, since her adventure
with the bull, and this low growl made her start violently.  Well, if
the gate was only shut the bulldog might growl on till to-morrow
behind it, and she would be quite safe.

But no, the gate was open just a little way--quite enough to let a
bulldog through--even a pretty big one, as this was; and in another
moment the animal was at Bryda's heels, sniffing at her, and still
growling in a horrid, savage way that was worse than a torrent of
barks, and showing those white teeth of his that could give such
dreadful bites.

Poor Bryda's courage quite gave way.  To run was no use, the dog
could run faster.  Screaming would no doubt make him bite her at
once, instead of taking his time about it.  It was as bad as the
adventure with Paddy; and what made it worse was that Bryda was
strictly forbidden to go into this lane at all, because there had
been some infectious illness at Farmer Veitch's.  A bull_dog_ seemed
as bad as a bull.

Should she try the power of the human eye?  She had heard various
stories of people who had subdued savage dogs by simply gazing at
them fixedly till the brute nature quailed before the human intellect.

But that must require wonderful courage; and probably it would not
answer at all if the gazer were to look at all afraid.  And poor
little Bryda was simply terrified.

At this moment she caught sight of a tree close to her that had low
branches, most convenient for climbing.  Dogs cannot climb trees, and
the cats know it--just as cats cannot fly, and the birds know it, and
act accordingly.

In another moment, with a breathless spring and scramble Bryda was up
in the tree.  The dog sprang at her, and tore a large piece of her
frock, but she was unhurt; and you may suppose she felt glad that
there was only a bit of stuff in the sharp white teeth instead of a
bit of herself!

She lost a shoe, too, in the scramble; and the dog scratched it and
snuffed at it.  Breathless, torn as to garments, with one shoeless
foot, she climbed up a little higher, so as to be quite safe, and
looked down at the dog.

Of course he would go away now there was no chance of biting her.
And then she would jump down and run for her life to the village.
From her secure height she grew bold, and spoke valiantly to the dog.

"Poor fellow! good dog, then!  Go home, sir!  Go to kennel!  Home,
sir!"

The dog only growled the more, but did not go away at all.  He did
not seem to care to go home.  Well, then, perhaps he would like to
hunt cats, after the cruel fashion of dogs?

"Hunt!" went on Bryda.  "Good boy!  Cats!  Puss, puss!  Cats!  After
them! catch them, good dog!"

But this bulldog was a strange animal.  He did not seem to care for
cats; but curled himself round at the foot of the tree, and kept his
eye on Bryda, who was really almost as much a prisoner as Beppo.

Really, this was dreadful--when Bryda was in such a hurry, too!
Perhaps she would not be in time to save Beppo.  Where were all the
people of the farm?  She would call loudly to them: "Mrs. Veitch!
Farmer!"

Directly she began to call, the dog jumped up barking, and sprang at
her.  True, he could not quite reach her, but he came dreadfully
close, and his barks were enough to drown her calling.

By and by, however, the farmhouse door opened, and an old woman
looked out.  She was the only person near, for it was harvest, and
all the men were busy, and all the women binding sheaves with them.
Her dim eyes caught sight of a figure in the tree, and when Bryda
called again to her she laughed and shook her fist.

[Illustration: Bryda called to the old woman, who laughed and shook
her fist.]

"Ay, ay!" she said.  "Young thieves from the village arter farmer's
apples!  Well, you bide there a bit, it'll gie ye something to
remember."

So saying, and laughing to herself over this capital punishment for
apple-stealers, she went back into the house and shut the door.

So there was Bryda, like Mahomet's coffin, hung between the sky and
earth; and there she sat, feeling very angry with the old woman, very
much vexed about Beppo, and very much afraid of the dog.

That amiable animal made himself a sentinel, and declined to move.
No scolding, no coaxing on Bryda's part, had any effect.  There he
was and there he meant to be; and Bryda sat on a branch, swinging her
long black legs, and wishing she had wings, so that she might fly
away from all her present troubles.

She might have been rather amused but for two things that much
distressed her.  One was Beppo's peril, and the other the knowledge
that the grannies would be vexed at her being in the lane at all,
when she had for such a good reason been forbidden to go there.

At last she felt so downhearted that she was very much inclined to
cry, but that she would not do, because the horrible dog would see
her, and probably he would feel pleased.  So there she remained.

"I wonder where Bryda is?" said grandmother.  She had been waiting
ever so long for her knitting, for which she had sent her
granddaughter to the garden.

"I hope she is not in mischief," said Mr. Seymour.

"Most likely she forgot," said Uncle Jack, who had come in again.  "I
will go to the garden and look for the little puss."

In the garden he did not see Hayes, but met Jim Dawson, and asked if
he had seen Miss Bryda.  Jim told him that she had gone down the
lane, and off he went in pursuit.

You may suppose Bryda was glad to hear his firm steps on the hard
ground, and to call to him as he came down the lane without fear of
his going off and leaving her.

But Uncle Jack, though he sent the dog off and helped her down,
suppressed any inclination he may have had to laugh, and asked for
grandmother's knitting very gravely.  Nor did he seem to think that
Beppo's threatened punishment justified her disobedience.

"If he stole the fruit he deserved to be punished, and you ought not
to try and screen him, Bryda.  You may be sure Hayes would be careful
not to punish him else.  He has boys of his own."

So Bryda, very downhearted, walked by his side back to the house.  He
would not interfere, nor let her go on to Roger, and all she could do
was to fetch the knitting, and hope the grannies would forgive her
disobedience.

Perhaps the reason why Bryda, with the best intentions, got into
trouble when she least expected, was because she did not stop to
think, but went off in a great hurry to carry out her plans.

By the time she reached the garden, three quarters of an hour, or
perhaps an hour, had passed.  She went straight to the tool-house.
Beppo was not there.  She called, and no one answered; the gardeners
had gone to their dinner, so Bryda, rather slowly and sadly, went in
to get ready for her own.




CHAPTER XVI.

POOR MOLL!

While Bryda was running wildly down the lane Cousin Salome had a very
unusual sort of visitor.  An untidy girl, who had taken more time to
put ribbons in her hair than to brush it, and whose necklace of glass
beads matched ill with her unmended frock, stood by the couch of the
gentle invalid.  It had taken a long while for Moll Dawson to gather
courage to come up to the house, though Cousin Salome had sent many
messages by her maid; but here she was at last, looking
half-impudent, half-bashful, and altogether uncomfortable, till
Cousin Salome gradually melted her shyness by talking about the
adventure of the bull, and about Bryda, and Beppo, and various other
things.  Then gently she began to talk about the girl's own past
life, and again Moll spoke in the hard, defiant voice, which told how
truly unhappy she was.

"Did you ever go to church?" asked Cousin Salome.

"Yes, I went into a church once," said Moll thoughtfully, "'an' I
heard a preachin', and the parson talked about children of wrath, and
the bad place waiting for 'em."

[Illustration: (Bryda running wildly down the lane)]

"Oh, yes, I can read and write after a fashion," she went on, in
answer to Cousin Salome's questions.  "I went to school only
half-time, and worked in the factory the other, so as not to have too
much school."

And Moll drew herself up, and laughed and showed her white teeth, and
was, to all appearance, quite proud of being so naughty.  But all the
same she gave a little sigh as she looked again at the invalid's
white, sweet face, and pitying eyes.

"I reckon you've always been good," she went on rapidly.  "It isn't
hard for the likes of you neither."

She looked round the white, quiet room, and Cousin Salome looked,
too, and she sighed a moment before she smiled again with a happier
thought.  Ah, there were temptations in that still, comfortable room,
too.  Evil spirits would enter even there, and whisper discontent,
and fretfulness, and impatience to the sufferer who had lain there so
long; but Salome smiled again, because she knew that the promise was
for her and for poor Moll, "When thou passest through the waters I am
with thee."

And in her gentle, low-toned voice she began to tell the poor
ignorant girl of that good Shepherd who gave his life for the sheep.

"Even for me!" said Moll, at last, and buried her face in her hands
and sobbed.  It seemed too good to be true.

[Illustration: (Moll crying at Salome's bedside)]

Cousin Salome's maid, hearing the sobs, came from the next room,
fearing that the invalid would be over-tired; and, by way of making a
change of conversation, began to tell how she had been in the garden,
of Hayes' wrath; and Beppo's punishment.

"And no wonder he should turn out badly, ma'am," she said; "they
tramping foreigners aren't likely to come to good.  Let him go to the
Union, I say."

Moll Dawson had listened attentively.  Now she rose, put on her
crushed hat, and smoothed its showy but shabby red feather.

"I'll come again--may I, miss?" she said.  "It's like going to heaven
to come in here."

Salome gave her a ready welcome, and Moll's heavy step became a
careful tiptoe walk as she crossed the room.

Once outside the house, however, Moll walked fast enough to the
garden, and there went all round the walks till she found Mr. Hayes.
He had finished his round of the vineries, and was going to the
tool-house, to carry out his threat to Beppo, when this wild looking
girl met him.

"Mr. Hayes," she said, "you let that foreign boy go, will you?  He
never took your peaches, no more nor you did yourself."

"Oh!" said Hayes, looking at her with no pleased eyes, as she spoke
thus boldly; "perhaps you know who did take them, if you're so sure
it wasn't Beppo?"

"Perhaps I do!" retorted Moll coolly; "anyhow, you'll not flog a boy
as hasn't done anything, I suppose?"

"Unless I know who was the thief I shall suppose it was Beppo,"
replied Hayes sulkily.  "Why, he owned it himself; but if you can
prove some one else did it, and that the stone came into his pocket
quite by accident, why, then, of course, I shall believe you, Moll
Dawson."

He spoke in tones of utter contempt; indeed, poor Moll was not often
treated with much respect.

She stood still a moment, with her eyes cast down; then, as Hayes
began to move, with a great effort she said, "Well, there, then, I
took them; will that satisfy you?"

"You did?" said Hayes, scowling at her.  "I fancy you are telling
lies, Moll Dawson; they come easier to you than the truth, I know."

Moll colored crimson, but did not answer.

"I suppose you put the stone into Beppo's pocket so as he should be
accused," went on Hayes, looking searchingly at her.

Moll nodded in silence.

"I don't know who to believe, or what to to believe," he answered; "I
_know_ somebody's telling lies, and perhaps it's both of you.
Anyhow----"

Here he walked off to the tool-house and unlocked the door.

"Come out!" he said roughly.  And Beppo came looking quite collected
now.

"Look here, young un," said Hayes in a very much softened tone, "I've
boys of my own, and I'd be sorry to flog one of them if he didn't
deserve it.  Just you look up at me now, and tell me the whole truth."

Beppo looked up in the gardener's face, and his dark eyes were calm
and clear; he did not look like a criminal.

His broken English was rather funny, but Hayes soon understood that
he had in truth done a small piece of mischief.  His foot slipped as
he was working, and he fell against a melon-frame and broke a pane of
glass.  A cut on one finger showed that he spoke the truth.  As to
the peaches, he would rather starve than touch one of them.  "And I
very sorry for you, Mr. Hayes," he added.

Hayes was quite touched.

"Go home and get your dinner.  I quite believe you, my boy," he said.
"Stay, come in and have a bit of dinner with my wife and young folks."

Beppo went, and from that day forward had a steady friend in Hayes.

"As for you, Moll Dawson," said the gardener sharply, "you get along
out of this.  And if ever I catch you anywhere near the garden again
you'll go before the magistrate, as sure as my name's Hayes."

Moll turned away without a word, and went slowly back to the village.

Light was coming slowly to her dark mind as the dawn comes on a
troubled sea.  She had told a lie to Hayes--for what reason we shall
see; but she did not understand yet that it was a sin.  "A white
lie," she called it, a lie told for a good purpose.  Thinking over
all that Cousin Salome had said to her, she went slowly home and
sought her brother Jim.  Close to the house she met him.

"Jim," she said, "I've told a lie to save you to-day; now you do
something for me."

"All right, old girl," said Jim, indifferently; "one lie more or less
don't matter much, I reckon.  What do you want out of me?"

"I said _I_ stole the peaches, instead of you," said Moll, going on
with her story.

"My stars!" cried Jim.  "What a go!  I wonder old Hayes didn't half
murder you!  What did he say?"

"Never you mind," said Moll.  "I've got you out of a hole, and that's
enough for you.  Now you do something for me--tit for tat, Jim."

"What's up now?" asked her brother, struck by a gentleness in her
tone which was quite new.

"Leave yon old carpenter and his coin alone," said she.  "Look here,
Jim, I never asked you to leave a good job like that for me before,
but do you give up robbing him, there's a good lad."

"Why, whatever has come to the girl?  And you the first to put it in
my head to get in at night, and make the old chap show where he keeps
those miserly savings o' his you say he hides in his house!"

"Do you let him alone, Jim," entreated Moll.  "I know you and Harry
Crowther mean to get in to-morrow night, and no one'll hinder, for
the old man's house stands a bit away.  I'll not help in the job,
Jim, and if you give up too----"

"What will you give me?" sneered Jim.  "Make it worth my while, Moll,
and I might think of it."

"How can I?" said Moll.  "Give it up, Jim.  Suppose you got caught?"

"You mean to round on me!" said Jim savagely, seizing her arm as he
spoke, and crushing it in his strong fingers till Moll had to set her
teeth not to scream aloud.  "You want to get your brother a nice
pleasant time in jail!  You're a nice loving sister, you are!  Now,
look you here, Moll; you do that, and I'll break every bone in your
body as soon as ever I get out again."

"I'm not _quite_ so mean," answered Moll; "I never would get you into
trouble, Jim, and that you know as well as I do.  But I'll do my best
to get you and Harry Crowther, too, to let an old man alone.  What's
to be done with yon little dark-eyed chap, him they call Beppo, or
some such outlandish name, if you get all the old man's savings?
Precious little you care who starves so long as you get all you want.
Come now, do this one thing for me, like a good lad, Jim," she went
on, with a rough effort at coaxing him.

But Jim only told her to mind her own business.  So Moll went away
and left him.

All the rest of the day she kept wondering how this robbery could be
prevented, and at last, as the evening closed in, an idea struck her.
If no inducement could prevail on Jim, she had this plan to fall back
on.

She would not "round on" Jim; that is, she would tell no tales.  She
would not tell tales, or give warning to his intended victims, but
she had an idea of her own.  Whether she was able to carry it out
with success we shall see.




CHAPTER XVII.

"WHERE THIEVES BREAK THROUGH."

Two or three nights after this, Roger and Beppo--who was now as happy
as possible--had gone to bed quietly as usual, and had both fallen
asleep, when Beppo awoke with a start, and sat up in bed.  He did not
know at first why he had awakened so suddenly, and he could hear, by
the old carpenter's quiet and regular breathing, that he still slept.
But Roger was a little deaf, and the noise that woke Beppo was not
loud enough to rouse him.  It was, indeed, not meant to rouse
anybody, for, as Beppo was falling to sleep again, he heard it once
more, and this time sat up in bed and strained his ears to catch the
sound.

There could be no doubt about it: stealthy footsteps were moving
outside; whispering voices speaking close to the house; then the
latch was lifted very gently, and let down with a little click.  Poor
Beppo, sitting up in bed, felt his heart beat so loud that he fancied
the people outside must hear it, although the room in which he slept
was divided from the kitchen into which thieves were trying to break.

For a moment he sat overcome by terror, but it was only for a moment.
Quietly and quickly he stole out of bed, and proceeded to dress
himself as noiselessly as possible.  He would creep out of another
window--the window of the bedroom--without disturbing Roger!  And in
order to delay the thieves, in case they should get into the kitchen
before he could bring help, he bolted the bedroom door on the inside.
Then, not waiting for shoes or stockings, he gently opened the
casement window, and began to try and wriggle through.

It was no easy matter, especially as the window was very small, and
he dared not make a sound.  The house stood so much apart that he
felt it would be useless to call aloud for help; it was probable no
one would hear him except the thieves, who would not give him time
for more than one shout.  All the neighbors would be sleeping the
sound sleep of working men and women, and the only chance of rousing
them would be to hammer on their doors and rattle their windows till
they woke.  A policeman would take longer to find.  Beppo's hasty
plan was to run for the nearest neighbors--John Broome, the
blacksmith, and Alick Thornicroft, the shepherd.

With much difficulty he was squeezing through the tiny window, when,
in the faint starlight--for the night was very dark, except for the
pale rays of a few stars shining between spaces in the clouds--he
caught sight of a most extraordinary object.  The window of the
bedroom through which he was wriggling was at the side of the house,
and he could hear the thieves working away with some tools to force
open the front window.  Suddenly the slight noise they were making
ceased, and it seemed as if they too were looking at the very strange
figure that now appeared in sight.

Slowly it came out of the shade of some dark, thick trees; a very
tall, straight figure, with one arm extended, pointing to the place
where the housebreakers stood.

Beppo, half out of the window, gazed, horror-stricken, at this
object, which, with the superstition of his country, he felt sure was
an evil spirit, come to terrify, or perhaps to carry off, the
evildoers.  They seemed frightened too, for as the figure very slowly
moved along, not, however, coming near as yet, Beppo heard them
whispering to each other.

"Let's go home; I don't like the look of that--that thing!"

"Who's afraid?" sneered the other voice.

"Hush! it's speaking," said the first.

"Jim Dawson," said a low, deep tone that seemed to come from the
figure, "I know you!"

"Come away, Jim," whispered one of the thieves.  "I'm off."

"Stop, Harry Crowther!" said the figure.

"Harry, you simpleton, come back!" cried Jim Dawson in the same low,
cautious tone in which he had all along spoken.  "Look here, lad."

As he spoke he stooped and picked up a heavy and rather sharp stone,
which with his whole strength he flung at the figure that stood,
still pointing at him, only a few yards off.

When the stone struck the figure, it fell with a deep groan to the
earth; and it lay in a confused heap, motionless.

"Well done, Jim!" said Harry Crowther; and the worthy couple went to
work again on the window frame.

Beppo delayed no longer, but got quietly out of the window, dropped
carefully to the ground, stole away till he reached a dark shadow,
avoiding the spot where the heap lay, and then was off like the wind,
down the lane, and up the blacksmith's garden path.

Meantime, the burglars easily made for themselves an entrance through
the window, and went searching the kitchen, poking into every nook
and corner to find the old carpenter's hidden riches.

"This is no go!" said Crowther at last, finding absolutely nothing
but a very old silver watch, which he promptly pocketed.  "We must
wake the old boy, and ask him where the 'swag' is."

"Right, mate!  Misers always have some queer hole of their own to put
their tin in," answered Jim, still hunting about the kitchen.

The sound of a saucepan falling, which Jim's clumsy hands let go,
woke old Roger, who, seeing a light in the kitchen, suddenly appeared
in the doorway with an old coat hastily thrown over his shoulders.

"Look! he's saved us the trouble," said one of them.

"Ah!" growled the other.  "He'll know us now, and we'll be had up for
this."

Jim Dawson seized the poker, and, advancing to the old man,
brandished it above his head.

"Now, look here, old Roger," he said, "we want your money, but we
don't want your life--that's no use to us.  Now, just give us up
those savings, quiet and peaceable, and off we go, if you promise
first to hold that tongue of yours."

"Old miser!" went on Harry Crowther, "where do you keep all your
gold?  Out with it!"

"I have no gold, my lad," answered old Roger.  His voice trembled a
little; it may have been from cold, or from fear, or both.

"That's a lie!" cried Jim.  "Who told little miss at the house up
here about all the treasure he kept hid away?  Come now, out with it
quietly, before I make you."

"Ah!  I understand," said old Roger quietly.  "There's plenty of
_that_ treasure for thee, my lad, enough and to spare.  It's all in
here--all in here."

He tottered slowly across the floor--such a feeble old man he
seemed!--till he reached his little workshop on the opposite side of
the kitchen.  Into this room the thieves followed him, with eyes full
of greedy expectation.  Roger went up to a little table, and took
therefrom an old book in strong, plain binding, that seemed to have
been much used.

There were probably banknotes hidden between the pages, thought the
burglars, and Jim Dawson snatched it from his hand roughly.

"It's all there, 'where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where
thieves do not break through nor steal,'" repeated Old Roger.

Jim Dawson rapidly searched the book, holding it upside down, that
anything loose might fall out, and examining the cover, to see if
there were any secret place.  But it was only an old Bible, and with
a yell he sprang at the defenseless old man, and would have injured
him seriously, had it not been at this moment there came a sound of
the door opening, and footsteps in the kitchen.

Beppo had come with the blacksmith and the shepherd, and a sturdy
young farmer whom he had met on the way back.

The thieves were caught in a trap.  Beppo, creeping quietly through
the larger window, had let in these kind friends; and before Jim
Dawson and his bad companion could think of escape they were seized
by strong hands and held fast.

A policeman was soon brought, and as they and their captors were
leaving the house they passed that queer heap.

"What's this?" said Thornicroft; "some one been following you?"

"Some one who tried to frighten me," said Jim Dawson sullenly; "so I
up with a stone."

"And killed your own sister," said the blacksmith, raising the figure
gently.

It was indeed poor Moll; but she was not dead, only stunned and
senseless.




CHAPTER XVIII.

"FRIEND, GO UP HIGHER!"

There came at last, next day, a governess for Bryda; and she,
remembering Miss Quillnib, the only teacher she had ever had, except
mother, expected an elderly lady with prim dress and iron-gray curls.
But it is hard to say if she was most surprised or pleased to see a
bright-faced young girl who could not be more than twenty-one or
twenty-two, who was nicely dressed, and looked as if she could enjoy
amusing things quite as well as Miss Bryda herself.

Bryda put her through a short catechism when her shyness had worn off
a little, which was by the time that she and the governess had
settled down to tea in the cosy schoolroom.

"Miss Mervyn, do you like jam?" she asked, so very gravely that the
young lady burst into an extremely merry laugh.

"Very much," she said, trying to be as grave as her pupil;
"especially raspberry!  We used to call that 'real jam,' at my home."

"Did you?" said Bryda.  "But do you like lessons better than play?"

"Certainly not!" said Miss Mervyn.  "Only the play would get very
stupid if it went on every day, all day long.  So I like some
lessons, too.  How should you like to live on jam without any bread,
Bryda?"

"Not at all."

"Well, I think the working part of the day is the bread to make the
play seem nice.  How would a cake be that was only currants and
sugar?"

Bryda laughed, and then she grew solemn again.  "But I _don't_ like
dates," she said.

[Illustration: Bryda laughed, and then grew solemn.]

"No more do I," answered Miss Mervyn.  "That is, I don't like too
many at once.  But I suppose you never remember your birthday, Bryda?"

"Twenty-first of June!" said the pupil promptly.  "But then I know
all about that, and it's a very nice sort of day!"

"Well, if I were to give you a packet of sweeties every year on the
day of the battle of Waterloo, would it be easy to remember?"

"It might," answered Breda.

"Then let us try to divide the day between lessons and play, so that
we may have the proper quantities of bread and jam?  Shall we, dear?"

"Yes, that will be nice!  And, oh!  Miss Mervyn," burst out Bryda,
"will you sometimes come and see old Roger?"  She had thought of
little else all day.

"Who is old Roger?" asked Miss Mervyn.

Bryda poured out all the story of Roger and of Beppo, and of her
first adventure in the Dawsons' cottage, and of all that had happened
since.

The story lasted till there came a knock at the door, and Uncle Jack
entered.

"Well, Uncle Jack! what have they done to Jim Dawson?" cried Bryda.

"Jim has been sent to prison," answered Uncle Jack; "when his time of
punishment is over we will see what can be done for him.  And Moll is
not dead, Bryda; that is what I came up to tell you--that and
something else.  Moll will recover, and when she leaves the infirmary
Cousin Salome has a little plan for her, which will take her away
among kind people, who will teach her and help her to be good."

"What was the something else, Uncle Jack?"

"The something else was that old Roger would like to see you
to-morrow morning, if Miss Mervyn will be good enough to take you
there, as early as possible," he said.  "Roger is going to his
palace, Bryda, and he may start to-morrow, so he would like to say
good-by."

"How nice for Roger," said Bryda.  "Aren't you glad he is going,
Uncle Jack?  You spoke quite sadly.  I suppose you will miss old
Roger; I am sure I shall."

"Yes, I am very glad," said Uncle Jack, in a voice that shook a
little.  Evidently he would miss old Roger very much indeed.

"Poor Liz!" said Bryda, as she went to bed, "I am so sorry she cannot
go too!"

When Miss Mervyn and Bryda went down to Roger's cottage in the
morning, it seemed wonderfully quiet.  There was no sound of the
carpenter's diligent work--all his tools were neatly laid aside.  The
cottage looked as though it were Sunday.  Roger was going home; he
would need his tools no more.

Going into the inner room, they found old Roger in bed propped up
with pillows, while Beppo, crouched at the foot of the bed, kept his
big, dark eyes fixed, with a very sorrowful look, on the old man's
face.

Then, and not till then, did Bryda suddenly understand what it all
meant; and with a little cry of "Oh, Roger, don't die!" she sprang to
the bedside.

"Gently, dear," said Miss Mervyn following her.

"Oh, I will be still!" sobbed Bryda; "but, oh, Roger, I _never_
thought you meant dying, when you told me about your palace.  And it
was because I did not understand, and told Moll Dawson about your
treasures, that all this has happened!  Oh, it's my fault!" she
sobbed.

"No, dear," said Miss Mervyn gently.  "It is not your fault.  But
next time things puzzle you, Bryda, ask some one to explain them."

There was a smile as beautiful as the calm light of a summer's sunset
on the old man's face.  How glad he seemed to be going Home!  With
something of an effort he spoke:

"They shall see the King in His beauty ... the land that is very far
off.  In My Father's house ... many mansions ... a place for you ...
that means one for me too, Miss Bryda!"

"And one for Liz," said Bryda quickly.

"Ah!  Liz will be able to show me round, she's been there for so long
... she'll teach me the ways o' the place, and the new song they sing
there.  She was always a good singer, was Liz, and loved it."

"For Beppo one place, too," said a little voice from the foot of the
bed.

"One place for all the children of the King, if they have kept their
garments white," said Miss Mervyn.

"Yes," went on Roger faintly, "where the Lord God giveth light...
Wipeth away all tears...  One thing more...  What is it?"  His memory
seemed to fail, then again returned.

"Yes, that's it...  Not all rest and singing...  His servants shall
serve Him ... work for old Roger ... work for Beppo ... for all, work
and rest.  But there's something more ... something good----"

His voice failed completely.

"Yes, there is," said Miss Mervyn; "the best thing of all!  'They
shall see His Face!'"

A smile of exquisite delight came over the old man's face.  He spoke
no more, but lay back on his pillows, gazing before him and folding
his hands, as if already he had some foretaste of that wonderful
promise, given long ago to the pure in heart, "They shall see God!"

And then, from utter weakness, he fell info a gentle sleep, like that
of a child, with that same smile on his face.

Thus Miss Mervyn, and even Bryda and little Beppo, as they looked,
could understand how true are the words of the Apostle, "Every man
that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as He is pure."

They would try to be of the number of those for whom the many
mansions are prepared; of those, like Roger,

  "The guileless in their way,
    Who keep the ranks of battle,
  Who mean the things they say."


They stood watching old Roger's sleep for a little while, and then
Miss Mervyn gently drew Bryda away; and Beppo and Mrs. Mears, the
kind parish nurse and Bible woman, were left to watch the sleeper.

Before that day was ended old Roger had set out on his journey--had
gone to join Liz in the Palace of the King.

The shock of Jim Dawson's attempted robbery, and a chill caught at
the same time, were more than Roger's enfeebled frame could stand.

Cousin Salome wrote a little poem about him; but she said, and all
agreed with her, that the old man's life and death were a better
poem, written in God's book of history, where perhaps the names that
we think great and famous are not the most conspicuous.

His body was laid beside that of Liz and Bryda gathered the freshest
flowers and made two wreaths every Sunday morning.

And Beppo?  A well-to-do farmer's wife, who had no child, offered to
adopt him, and make him quite like her own child.  Cousin Salome was
not sure if the plan would work well, so she proposed that the boy
should go for a month at first.  And he went; and at the end of the
month the farmer's wife declared that she must be allowed to keep
him, if only because he was such a capital advertisement of her good
milk and butter, since he had grown so much fatter and stronger.  Now
and then he was allowed to come and spend the day with Bryda, for the
grannies said he was "a perfect little gentleman, who could do Bryda
no harm."

Bryda had no more need to complain of being lonely, or of having
nothing to do.  By the time that she had done her lessons diligently,
and played heartily with Miss Mervyn, who was very good at battledore
and shuttlecock and other capital games, and had found time to do
"something for someone else," in which Miss Mervyn was always ready
to help her, why the day was gone, and it was bedtime.  That is the
great secret of not getting into scrapes, to have plenty to do, and
Uncle Jack was obliged to confess one day, when Bryda insisted on an
answer to her question, that he could no longer truthfully say that
she "lived in a jar of Mixed Pickles."



THE END.









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