Mattie:—A Stray (Vol 1 of 3)

SET UP IN BUSINESS.

I am afraid that the reader will be very much disgusted with us as story-tellers, when we inform him that all these details are but preliminary to our story proper—a kind of prologue in six chapters to the comedy, melodrama or tragedy—which?—that the curtain will rise upon in our next book. Still they are details, without which our characters, and their true positions on our stage, would not have been clearly defined; and in the uphill struggles of our stray, perhaps some student of human nature, like Mr. Hinchford, may take some little interest.

For they were real uphill struggles to better herself, and, therefore, worthy of notice. Remarking them, and knowing their genuineness, it has struck us that even from these crude materials a kind of heroine might be fashioned—not the heroine of a high-class book—that is, a "book for the Boudoir"—but of a book that will at least attempt to draw a certain phase of life as plainly as it passed the writer's eyes once.

Let us, ere we begin our story, then, speak of this Mattie a little more—this girl, who was not a "reg'lar"—who had never been brought up to "the profession"—who was merely a Stray! Let us even watch her in her new vocation—set up in life with Mr. Hinchford's sixpence—and note by what strange accident it changed the tenor of her life; and at least set her above the angry dash of those waves which, day after day, engulph so many.

All that we know of Mattie, all that Mattie knew of herself, the reader is fully acquainted with. Mattie's mother, a beggar, a tramp, occasionally a thief, died in a low lodging-house, and, with some flash of the better instincts at the last, begged her child to keep good, if she could. And the girl, by nature impressionable, only by the force of circumstance callous and cunning, tried to subsist on the streets without filching her neighbours' goods—wavered in her best intentions, as well she might, when the world was extra vigorous with her—grew more worldly with the world's hardness, and stole now and then for bread, when there was no bread offered her; made friends with young thieves—"reg'lars"—of both sexes; constituted them her playmates, and rehearsed with them little dramas of successful peculation; fell into bad hands—receivers of stolen goods, and owners of dens where thieves nightly congregated; regarded the police as natural enemies, the streets as home, and those who filled them as men and women to be imposed upon, to be whined out of money by a beggar's plaint, amused out of it by a song in a shrill falsetto, tricked out of it by a quick hand in the depths of their pockets. Still Mattie never became a "reg'lar;" she earned money enough "to keep life in her"—she had become inured to the streets, and had a fear, a very uncommon one in girls of her age and mode of living, of the police-station and the magistrate. Possibly her voice saved her; she had sung duets with her mother before death had stepped between them, and she sold ballads on her own account when the world was all before her where to choose. She was a girl, too, whom a little contented; one who could live on a little, and make shift—terrible shift—when luck run against her; above all, her tempters, the Watts, Simes', and others, festering amongst the Kent Street courts, were cruel and hard with her, and she kept out of their way so long as it was possible.

Given the same monotony of existence for a few more years, and Mattie would have become a tramp perhaps, oscillating from fair to fair, race-course to race-course, losing true feeling, modesty, heart and soul, at every step. She had already tried the fairs within ten miles—the races at Hampton and Epsom, &c., and had earned money at them—she was seeing her way to business next summer, at the time she was interested in one particular house in Great Suffolk Street, Borough.

Mattie was fond of pictures, and therefore partial to Mr. Wesden's shop, where the cheap periodicals and tinsel portraits of celebrated stage-ranters, in impossible positions, were displayed—fond, too, of watching Mr. Wesden's daughter in her perambulations backwards and forwards to a day-school in Trinity Street, and critically surveying her bright dresses, her neat shoes and boots, her hats for week days, and drawn bonnets for Sundays, with a far-off longing, such as a destitute child entertains for one in a comfortable position—such a feeling as we envious children of a larger growth may experience when our big friends flaunt their wealth in our eyes, and talk of their hounds, their horses, and their princely estates.

"Oh! to be only Harriet Wesden," was Mattie's secret wish—to dress like her, look like her, be followed by a mother's anxious eyes down the street; to have a father to see her safely across the broad thoroughfare lying between Great Suffolk Street and school; to go to school, and be taught to read and write and grow up good—what happiness, unattainable and intangible to dream of!

Eugene Sue, I think, tried to show the bright side of Envy, and the good it might effect; and I suppose there are many species of Envy, or else that we do not call things invariably by their right names. Mattie at least envied the stationer's daughter; Miss Wesden was a princess to her, and lived in fairy-land; and in seeing how happy she was, and what good spirits she had, Mattie's own life seemed dark enough; but that other life which Mattie tried to keep aloof from, denser and viler still. Harriet Wesden was the heroine of her story, and in a far-off distant way—never guessed at by its object—Harriet Wesden was loved, especially after she had begun to notice Mattie's attention to the pictures in the window, and to change them for her sole edification more often than was absolutely necessary.

Mattie was well known in Great Suffolk Street; they knew her at Wesden's—nearly every shopkeeper knew her, and exchanged a word or two with her occasionally—Great Suffolk Street was her beat. In health Mattie was a good-tempered, sharp-witted girl—bearing the ills of her life with composure—selling lucifers and singing for a living.

They trusted her in Great Suffolk Street; the poor folk living at the back thereof bought lucifers of her of a Saturday night, and asked how she was getting on—the boys guarding their masters' shop-boards nodded in a patronizing way at her—now and then, a plate of broken victuals was tendered her from some well-to-do shopkeeper, who could afford to part with it, and not miss it either—before her fever, she had had a little "c'nexion," and she set to work to get it up again, when the Hinchford sixpence heaped her basket with onions.

That was the turning-point of Mattie's life; after that, a little woman with an eye to business; a small female costermonger with a large basket before her suspended by a strap—troubled and kept moving on by policemen—but earning her fair modicum of profit; quick with her eyes, ready with her answers, happy as a queen whose business was brisk, and lodging away from Mother Watts and old Simes, whose acquaintance she had quietly dropped.

Mattie still watched Harriet Wesden from a distance; still felt the same strange interest in that girl, one year her senior, growing up so pretty whilst she became so plain and weather-beaten; experiencing still the same attraction for that house in particular; knowing each of its inmates by heart, and feeling, since the brooch defalcation, a part of the history attached to the establishment. When the Wesdens made up their minds to send Harriet to boarding-school, by way of a finish to her education, Mattie learned the news, and was there to see the cab drive off; Mattie even told Ann Packet, servant to the Wesdens, and regular purchaser of Mattie's "green stuff," that she should miss her werry much, and Suffolk Street wouldn't be half Suffolk Street after she was gone—which observation being reported to Mrs. Wesden, directed more attention to the stray from that quarter, and made one more friend at least.

One more—for Mattie had found a friend in the tall, stiff-backed, stern-looking old gentleman of the name of Hinchford. The lodger's philosophy had all gone wrong; his knowledge of human nature had been at fault; his prophecies concerning Mattie's ingratitude had proved fallacious, and her steady application to business had greatly interested him. He was a sterling character, this old gentleman, for he confessed that he had been wrong; and he now held forth Mattie's industry as an example of perseverance in the world to his son, just as in the past he had intended her as a striking proof of the world's ingratitude.

The climax was reached two years after his dialogue with Mattie on the stairs—when Mattie was thirteen years of age, and Master Hinchford sixteen—when Mattie still hawked goods in Suffolk Street—quite a woman of the world, and deeply versed in market prices—one who had not even at that time attained to the dignity of shoes and stockings.

Mr. Wesden, the quiet man of business, was in his shop as usual, when Mattie walked in, basket and all.

Mr. Wesden regarded her gravely, and shook his head. Onions and some sweet herbs had been speculated in that morning, and no further articles were required at that establishment.

"If you please, I don't want you to buy, Mr. Wesden—" said she, "but will you be good enough to send that up to Master Hinchford?"

Mr. Wesden looked at the small, dirty piece of paper in which something was wrapped, and then at Mattie.

"It's honestly come by, sir," said Mattie.

"I never said it wasn't," he responded.

Mattie retired into the street—it was a Saturday night, and there were many customers abroad—she was doing a flourishing trade, when a tall youth caught her by the arm, and dragged her round the corner of the first street.

"Oh! don't pinch my arm so, Master Hinchford."

"What's the twelve and sixpence for, Mattie—not for the—not for the——"

"Yes, the broach! I've been a-saving up, and keeping myself down for it, and now it's easy on my mind."

"I won't have it. I've been thinking about it, and I won't have it, Mattie."

"Please do. I've been trying so hard to wipe that off. I'm quite well now. I've got the c'nexion all right, and shall save it all up agin, and the winter's arf over, and when Miss Wesden comes back, you can buy her another brooch with it, and nobody disapinted."

The youth laughed, and coloured, and shook his head.

"I won't take twelve and sixpence from you, I tell you. Why, Mattie, you don't know the value of money, or you'd never fling it away like this. Why, it's a fortune to you."

"No—it's been a weight—that twelve and six, somehow. I've been a thief until to-night—now it's wiped clean. Don't try to make me a thief agin by giving it on me back. Oh! don't please stop my trade like this!"

"Well, I shall make you out in time, Mattie—perhaps."

Master Hinchford pocketed the money, and walked away slowly. Mattie returned to her "c'nexion." Mr. Hinchford sat and philosophized to himself all the evening on the impracticability of arriving at a thorough understanding of human nature, as exemplified in "girl-kind."

THE END OF THE PROLOGUE.

Hard times set in after that night. The winter was half over, Mattie had said; but the worst half was yet to come, and for that she, with many thousands like her, had made but little preparation. The worst half of the frost of that year set in like a blight upon the London streets, froze the gutters, raised the price of coals, sent provisions up to famine figures, cut off all the garden stuff, and threw such fugitive traders as Mattie completely out of work. Hers became a calling that required capital now; even the greengrocers' shops, Borough way, were scantily stocked—the market itself was not what it used to be when things were flourishing, and oh! the prices that were asked in those times!

Poverty of an ill aspect set in soon after the frost; crime set in soon after poverty—when the workhouses are besieged by hungry claimants for relief, the prisons are always extra full. Suffolk Street, the streets branching thitherwards to Southwark Bridge, the narrow lanes and turnings round the Queen's Bench, in the Borough Road and verging towards Union Street, were all haunted by those phantoms that had set in with the frost—there was danger in the streets as well as famine, and money was hard to earn, and hold when earned! Small shopkeepers with large families closed their shutters and locked themselves in with desolation; men out of work grew desperate—the streets were empty of the basket women and costermongers, and swarming in lieu thereof with beggars and thieves; even the police, nipped at the heart by the frost, were harder on society that stopped the way, and had little mercy even on old faces. Mattie's was an old face which stopped the way at that time—Mattie, basketless and onionless, and trying lucifers again, and essaying on Saturday nights—when workmen's wages were paid—a song or two opposite the public-houses.

In this old fashion, Mattie earned a few pence at times; she was small for her age—very small—and the anxious-looking face touched those who had odd coppers to spare. But it was a task to live notwithstanding, and Mattie fought hard with the rest of the waifs and strays who had a tough battle to wage that winter time. "Luck went dead against her," as she termed it; she was barred from the market by want of capital—one lot of goods that she had speculated in never went off her hands, or rather her basket, on which they withered more and more with the frost, until they became unsaleable products—and there was no demand for lucifers or anything!

Mattie was nearly starving when the old tempter turned up in Great Suffolk Street—at the time when she was weak, and the police had been more than commonly "down on her," and she had not taken a halfpenny that day—at a time when the tempter does turn up as a general pile, that is, when we are waiting very anxiously for an Excuse.

"What! Mattie!—Lor! the sight o' time since I set eyes on you!"

"What! Mrs. Watts!"

"What are you doing, girl?—not much for yourself, I should think," with a disparaging glance at the tattered habiliments of our heroine.

"Not much just now, Mrs. Watts—hard lines it is."

"Ah! well, it may be—you allus wanted pluck, Mattie, like your mother. And hard lines it is just now, for those who stand nice about trifles. What's that in your hand, gal?"

"Congreve lights."

"What! still at Congreve lights—if I shouldn't hate the werry sight and smell on 'em by this time."

"So I do," said Mattie, sullenly.

"Come home with me, and let's have a bit o' talk together, Mattie—there's a friend or two o' your age a-coming to have a little talk with me to-night."

"Don't you keep a lodging house now?"

"No—a little shop for bones and bottles and such things; and we has a party in the back parler twice a week, and something nice and hot for supper."

"A school—on your own hook?" said Mattie, quickly.

"Oh! how sharp we gets as we grows up!—but you allus was as sharp as any needle, and I was only saying to Simes but yesterday, if I could just drop on little Mattie, she'd be the werry gal to do us credit—she would."

"I've been shifting for myself these last two years and odd, and I got on tidy till the frost set in, and now it's—all up!"

"Ah!—all up—precisely so."

Mrs. Watts did not detect the tragic element in Mattie's peroration; she had sallied forth in search of her, and had found her in the streets ragged and penniless and hungry. It was worth while to speculate in Mattie now—to show her some degree of kindness—to lure her back to the old haunts, and something worse than the old life. She began her temptations, and Mattie listened and trembled—the night was cold, and she had not tasted food that day. Mrs. Watts kept her hand upon the girl, and expatiated upon the advantages she had to offer now—even attempted to draw Mattie along with her.

"Wait a bit—don't be in a hurry," said Mattie; "I'll come presently p'raps—not just now."

"Oh! I'm not so sweet on you," said Mrs. Watts, aggrieved; "come if you like—stop away if you like—it's all one to me. I'll go about my rump-steaks for supper, and you can stay here and starve, if you prefer it."

This dialogue occurred only a short distance from Mr. Wesden's shop, when Mr. Wesden was putting up the shutters in his own quiet way, with very little noise, his boy having left him at a moment's notice. Mrs. Wesden, who had her fears for his back—Mr. W. had had a sensitive back for years—was dragging the shutters out from under the shop-board—thin slips of wood, that required not any degree of strength to manage. There were six shutters—at the third Mr. Wesden said—

"There's Mattie."

"Ah! poor girl!"

At the fifth he added—

"With an old woman that I don't like the style of very much."

Mrs. Wesden went to the door, and looked down the street at the tempter and the tempted—Mattie was under the lamp, and the face was a troubled one, on which the gas jet flickered. When the sixth shutter was up, and the iron band that secured them all firmly screwed into the door-post, the quiet couple stood side by side and watched the conflict to its abrupt conclusion. Both guessed what the subject had been—there was something of the night-bird and the gaol-bird about Mrs. Watts, that was easy of detection.

Mrs. Wesden touched her husband's arm.

"Danger, John."

"Ah!"

"And that girl has been a-going on so quietly for years, and getting her own living, and she without a father and a mother to care for her—not like our Harriet."

"No."

"And the way she brought back the money for that brooch."

"Yes—that was funny."

"I don't see the fun of it, John."

"That was good of her."

"Do you know, I've been thinking, John, we might find room for her—those boys are a great trouble to us, and if we had a girl, it might answer better to take the papers out, and she might serve in the shop."

"Serve in my shop—good Lord!"

"Some day when we could trust her, I mean—and she could sleep with Ann; and I daresay she would come for her keep in these times. And we might be saving her—God knows from what!"

"Mrs. Wesden, you're as full of fancies as ever you can stick."

"I've a fancy to help her in these hard times, John; and when helping her won't ruin us—us who have put by now a matter of three thou——"

"Hush!"

"And when helping her won't ruin us, but get rid of those plagues of boys, John. Fancy our Harriet in the streets like that!"

She pointed to Mattie standing alone there, still under the gas lamp, deep in thought. Mr. Wesden looked, but his lined face was expressive of little sympathy, his wife thought.

"We're hard pushed for a boy—the bill's no sooner down than up again—try a girl, John!"

"If you'll get in out of the cold, Mrs. W., I'll think of it."

Mrs. Wesden retired, and Mr. Wesden kept his place by the open door, and his quiet eyes on Mattie. He was a man who did nothing in a hurry, and whose actions were ruled by grave deliberation. He did not confess to his wife that of late years he had been interested in Mattie; watched her from under his papers in the shop-window; saw her business-like habits, her method, her briskness over her scanty wares, her cleverness even in dodging her bête noire the policeman. He was a man, moreover, who went to church and read his Bible, and had many good thoughts beneath his occasional brusqueness and invariable immobility. A very quiet man, a man more than ordinarily cautious, hard to please, and still harder to rouse.

In shutting up his shop that night, he had caught one or two fragments of the dialogue, and he knew more certainly than his wife that Mattie was being tempted back to the old life. Of that life he knew everything; he had learned it piece by piece without affecting to take an interest in the matter; he even knew that Mattie had long taken a fancy—an odd fancy—to his daughter, that she often inquired about her, and her boarding-school, of Ann Packet, domestic to the house of Wesden.

He thought of Mattie's temptation, then of Mrs. Wesden's extraordinary suggestion. He was a lord of creation, and if he had a weakness it was in pooh-poohing the suggestions of his helpmate, although he adopted them in nine cases out of ten, disguising them, as he thought, by some little variation, and bringing them forward in due course as original productions of his own teeming brain.

And boys had worried him for years—lost his numbers, been behind-hand with the Times to his best customers, insulted those customers when reprimanded, and set the blame of delay at his door, played and fought with other boys before his very shop-front, broken his windows in putting up the shutters, had even paid visits to his till, and surreptitiously made off with stock, and had never in his memory of boys—industrious or otherwise—possessed one civil, clean-faced, decent youth.

"Suppose I had Mattie on trial for a week," he said at last, and looked towards the lamp-post. Mattie was gone—a black shadow, exactly like her, was hurrying away down the street towards the Borough—running almost, and with her hands to her head, as though a crowd of thoughts was stunning her!

Mr. Wesden never accounted for leaving his shop-door open without warning his wife—for running at his utmost speed after the girl.

At the corner of Great Suffolk Street he overtook her.

"Where are you going?—what are you running for?" he asked, indignantly.

Mattie started, looked at him, recognized him.

"Nothin—partic'ler—is anythink the matter?"

"How—how—should you—like—to be—a news boy?" he panted.

No circumlocution in Mr. Wesden—straight to the point as an arrow.

"Yours!—you wouldn't trust me—you never gives trust."

"I've—I've thought of trying you."

"You?" she said again.

"Yes—me."

"Well, I'd do anythink to get an honest living—but I was giving up the thoughts o' it—it's so hard for the likes of us, master."

"Come back, and I'll tell you what I've been thinking about, Mattie."

Not a word about what Mrs. Wesden had been thinking about—such is man's selfishness and narrow-mindedness.

Mattie went back—for good!

On this prologue to our story we can afford to drop the curtain, leaving our figures in outline, and waiting a better time to paint our characters—such as they are—more fully. We need not dwell upon Mattie's trial, upon Mattie's change of costume, and initiation into an old frock and boots of the absent Harriet—of the many accidents of life at Wesden, stationer's, accidents which led to the wanderer's settling down, a member of the household, an item in that household expenditure. Let the time roll on a year or two, during which Mr. Wesden's back grew worse, and Mrs. Wesden's hair more grey, and let the changes that have happened to our friends speak for themselves in the story we have set ourselves to write.

Leave we, then, the Stray on the threshold of her new estate, standing in Harriet Wesden's dress, thinking of her future; the shadow-land from which she has emerged behind her, and new scenes, new characters beyond there—beneath the bright sky, where all looks so radiant from the distance.

END OF THE FIRST BOOK.

THE NEW ESTATE.

HOME FOR GOOD.

Three years make but little difference in the general aspect of a poor neighbourhood. The same shops doing their scanty business; the same loiterers at street corners; the same watch from hungry eyes upon the loaves and fishes behind the window-glass; the same slip-shod men, women and children hustling one another on the pavement, in all weathers, "doing their bit of marketing;" the same dogs sniffing about the streets, and prowling round the butchers' shops.

An observer might detect many changes in the names over the shop fronts, certainly. Business goes wrong with a great many in three years—capital is small to work with in most instances, and when the rainy day comes, in due course, by the stern rule by which rainy days are governed, the resistance is feeble, and the weakest put the shutters up, sell off at an alarming sacrifice, and go, with wives and children, still further on the downhill road. There are seizures for rent, writs issued on delinquents, stern authority cutting off the gas and water, sterner authorities interfering with the weights and measures, which, in poor neighbourhoods, will get light occasionally; brokers' men making their quarterly raids, and still further perplexing those to whom life is a struggle, desperate and intense.

Amidst the changes in Great Suffolk Street, one business remains firm, and presents its wonted aspect. Over the little stationer's shop, the old established emporium for everything in a small way, is still inscribed the name of Wesden—has been repainted the name of Wesden in white letters, on a chocolate ground, as though there were nothing in the cares of business to daunt the tradesman who began life there, young and blooming!

There are changes amongst the papers in the windows—the sensation pennyworths—the pious pennyworths—the pennyworths started for the amelioration and mental improvement of the working classes, unfortunate pennyworths, that never get on, and which the working classes turn their backs upon, hating a moral in every other line as naturally as we do. The stock of volumes in the library is on the increase; the window, counter, shelves and drawers, are all well filled; Mr. Wesden deals in postage and receipt stamps—ever a good sign of capital to spare—and has turned the wash-house into a warehouse, where reams of paper, envelopes, and goods too numerous to mention, are biding their time to see daylight in Great Suffolk Street.

Changes are more apparent in the back-parlour, which has been home to Mr. and Mrs. Wesden for so many years. Let us look in upon them after three years' absence, and to the best of our ability note the alteration there.

Mr. and Mrs. Wesden are seated one on each side of the fire—Mr. Wesden in a new arm-chair, bought of an upholsterer in the Borough, an easy and capacious chair, with spring seats and sides, and altogether a luxury for that establishment. Mrs. Wesden has become very feeble and rickety; rheumatic fever—that last year's hard trial, in which she was given over, and the quiet man collapsed into a nervous child for the nonce—has left its traces, and robbed her of much energy and strength. She is a very old woman at sixty-three, grey-haired and sallow, with two eyes that look at you in an amiable, deer-like fashion—in a motherly way that gives you an idea of what a kind woman and good Christian she is.

Mr. Wesden, sitting opposite his worn better-half, was originally constructed from much tougher material. The lines are deeper in his face, the nose is larger, the eyes more sunken, perhaps the lips more thin, but there is business energy in him yet; no opportunity to earn money is let slip, and if it were not for constant twinges in his back, he would be as agile as in the old days when there were doubts of getting on in life.

But who is this sitting with them, like one of the family?—a dark-haired, pale-faced girl of sixteen, short of stature, neat of figure, certainly not pretty, decidedly not plain, with an everyday face, that might be passed fifty times, without attracting an observer; and then, on the fifty-first, startle him by its intense expression. A face older than its possessor's years; at times a grave face, more often, despite its pallor, a bright one—lit-up with the cheerful thoughts, which a mind at ease naturally gives to it.

Neatly, if humbly dressed—working with a rapidity and regularity that would have done credit to a stitching machine—evidently at home there in that back-parlour, to which her dark wistful eyes had been so often directed, in the old days; this is the Mattie of our prologue—the stray, diverted from the dark course it was taking, by the hand of John Wesden.

"Wesden, what's the time now?"

"My dear, it's not five minutes since you asked last," is the mild reproof of the husband, as he tugs at his copper-gilt watch chain for a while; "it's close on ten o'clock."

"I hope nothing has happened to the train—"

"What should happen, Mrs. Wesden?" says a brisk, clear ringing voice; "just to-night of all nights, when Miss Harriet is expected. Why, she didn't give us hope of seeing her till nine; and trains are always behind-hand, I've heard—and it's very early hours to get fidgety, isn't it, sir?"

"Much too early."

"I haven't seen my dear girl for twelve months," half moans the mother; "she'll come back quite a lady—she'll come back for good, Wesden, and be our pride and joy for ever. Never apart from us again."

"No, all to ourselves we shall have her after this. Well," with a strange half sigh, "we've done our duty by her, Mrs. W."

"I hope so."

"It's cost a heap of money—I don't regret a penny of it."

"Why should you, Wesden, when it's made our girl a lady—fit for any station in the world."

"But this perhaps," says Mr. Wesden, thoughtfully; "and this can't matter, now we——"

He does not finish the sentence, but takes his pipe down from the mantel-piece, and proceeds to fill it in a mechanical fashion. Mrs. Wesden looks at him quietly—her lord and husband never smokes before supper, without his mind is disturbed—the action reminds his wife that the supper hour is drawing near, and that nothing is prepared for Harriet's arrival.

"She will come home tired and hungry—oh! dear me—and nothing ready, perhaps."

"I'll help Ann directly," says Mattie.

The needle that has been plying all the time—that did not cease when Mattie attempted consolation—is stuck in the dress she is hemming; the work is rolled rapidly into a bundle; the light figure flits about the room, clears the table, darts down-stairs into the kitchen; presently appears with Ann Packet, maid-of-all-work, lays the cloth, sets knives and forks and plates; varies proceedings by attending to customers in the shop—Mattie's task more often, now Mr. Wesden's back has lost its flexibility—flits back again to the task of preparing supper in the parlour.

With her work less upon her mind, Mattie launches into small talk—her tongue rattles along with a rapidity only equal to her needle. She is in high spirits to-night, and talks more than usual, or else that loquacity for which a Mrs. Watts rebuked her once, has known no diminution with expanding years.

"We shall have her in a few more minutes, mistress," she says, addressing the feeble old woman in the chair; "just as if she'd never been away from us—bless her pretty face!—and it was twelve days, rather than twelve months, since we all said good-bye to her. She left you on a sick bed, Mrs. Wesden, and she comes back to find you well and strong again—to find home just as it should be—everything going on well, and everybody—oh! so happy!"

"And to find you, Mattie—what?" asks Mr. Wesden, in his quiet way.

"To find me very happy, too—happy in having improved in my scholarship, such as it is, sir—happy with you two friends, to whom I owe—oh! more than I ever can think about, or be grateful enough for," she adds with an impetuosity that leads her to rush at the quiet man and kiss him on the forehead.

"We're square, Mattie—we're perfectly square now," he replies, settling his silver-rimmed spectacles more securely on his nose.

"Oh! that is very likely," is the sharp response.

"You nursed the old lady like a daughter—you saved her somehow. If it hadn't been for you——"

"She would have been well weeks before, only I was such a restless girl, and wouldn't let her be quiet," laughs Mattie.

She passes into the shop again with the same elastic tread, serves out two ounces of tobacco, detects a bad shilling, and focuses the customer with her dark eyes, appears but little impressed by his apologies, and more interested in her change, locks the till, and is once more in the parlour, talking about Miss Harriet again.

"She is on her way now," she remarks; "at London Bridge by this time, and Master Hinchford—we must say Mr. Hinchford now, I suppose—helping her into the cab he's been kind enough to get for her."

"What's the time now, Wesden?" asks the mother.

"Well," after the usual efforts to disinter—or disembowel—the silver watch, "it's certainly just ten."

"And by the time Tom's put the shutters up, she'll be here!" cries Mattie; "see if my words don't come true, Mr. Wesden."

"Well, I hope they will; if they don't, I—I think I'll just put on my hat, and walk down to the station."

Presently somebody coming down-stairs with a heavy, regular tread, pausing at the side door in the parlour, and giving two decisive raps with his knuckles on the panels.

"Come in."

Enter Mr. Hinchford, senior, with his white hair rubbed the wrong way, and his florid face looking somewhat anxious.

"Haven't they come yet?"

"Not yet, sir."

"Ah! I suppose not," catching Mattie's glance directed towards him across the needlework which she has resumed again, and at which she is working harder than ever; "there's boxes to find, and pack on the cab, and Miss Harriet's no woman if she do not remember at the last minute something left behind in the carriage."

"Won't you sit down, sir?" asks Mrs. Wesden.

"N—no, thank you," he replies; "you'll have your girl home in a minute, and we mustn't over-crowd the little parlour. I shall give up my old habit of smoking here, now the daughter comes back—you must step up into my quarters, Wesden, a little more often."

"Thank you."

"Temporary quarters, I suppose, we must say, now the boy's getting on so well. Thank God," with a burst of affection, "that I shall see that boy in a good position of life before I die."

"He's a clever lad."

"Clever, sir!" ejaculates the father, "he's more than clever, though I don't sing his praises before his face. He has as clear a head-piece as any man of forty, and he's as good a man of business."

"And so steady," adds Mrs. Wesden.

"God bless you! madam, yes."

"And so saving," is the further addition of Mr. Wesden,—"that's a good sign."

"Ah! he knows the value of money better than his father did at his age," says the old man; "with his caution, energy, and cleverness we shall see him, if we live, a great man. Whoever lives to see him—a great man!"

"It's a comfort when our children grow up blessings to us," remarks Mrs. Wesden, dreamily looking at the fire; "neither you nor I, sir, have any cause to be sorry for those we love so very, very much."

"No, certainly not. We're lucky people in our latter days—good night."

"You can't stop, then?" asked Wesden.

"Not just now. Don't keep the boy down here, please—he'll stand and talk, forgetting that he's in the way to-night, unless you give him a hint to the contrary. Out of business, he's a trifle inconsiderate, unless you plainly tell him he's not wanted. Good night—I shall see Harriet in the morning."

"Yes—good night."

Mr. Hinchford retires again, and in a few minutes afterwards, before there is further time to dilate upon the danger of railway travelling, and the uncertainty of human hopes, the long-expected cab dashes up to the door. There is a bustle in Great Suffolk Street; the cabman brings in the boxes amidst a little knot of loungers, who have evidently never seen a box before, or a cab, or a young lady emerge therefrom assisted by a tall young man, or listened to an animated dispute about a cab-fare, which comes in by way of sequence whilst the young lady is kissing everybody in turn in the parlour.

"My fare's eighteenpence, guv'nor."

"Not one shilling, legally," affirmed the young man.

"I never did it for a shilling afore—I ain't a going now—I'll take a summons out first."

"Take it."

"You won't stand another sixpence, guv'nor?"

"No."

"Then," bundling on to his box, and lashing his horse ferociously, "I won't waste my time on a tailor—it's much too valuable for that!"

The young man laughs at this withering sarcasm, and passes through the shop into the parlour, where the animation has scarcely found time to subside.

Harriet Wesden is holding Mattie at arm's length, and looking steadily at her—the stationer's daughter is taller by a head than the stray.

"And you, Mattie, have been improving, I see—learning all the lessons that I set you before I went away—becoming of help to father and mother, and thinking of poor me sometimes."

"Ah! very often of 'poor me.'"

"Oh! how tired I am!—how glad I shall be to find myself in my room! Now, Mr. Sidney, I'm going to bid you good night at once, thanking you for all past services."

"Very well, Miss Harriet."

"And, goodness me!—I did not notice those things before! What! spectacles, Sidney—at your age?"

The tall young man colours and laughs—keeping his position at the door-post all the while.

"Can't afford to have weak eyes yet, and so have sacrificed all my personal charms for the sake of convenience in matters of business. You don't mean to say that they look so very bad, though?"

"You look nearer ninety than nineteen," she replies. "Oh! I wouldn't take to spectacles for ever so much."

"That's a very different affair," remarks Sidney.

"Why?"

"Oh! because it is—that's all. Well, I think I'll say good night now—shall I take that box up-stairs for you, Miss Harriet?"

"Ann and I can manage it, Mr. Hinchford," says Mattie.

"Yes, and put a rib out, or something. Can't allow the gentler sex to be black slaves during my sojourn in Great Suffolk Street. Good night all."

"Good night."

He closes the shop door, seizes the box which has been deposited in the shop, swings it round on his shoulders, and marches up-stairs with it two steps at a time, and whistling the while. On the landing, outside the sitting-room, and double-bedded room, which his father occupies, Ann Packet, domestic servant, meets him with a light.

"Lor a mussy on us!—is that you, Master Sidney?"

"Go a-head, up-stairs, wench, and let us find a place to put the box down. This is Miss Harriet's box."

"Orful heavy, ain't it, sir?"

"Well—it's not so light as it might be," asserts Master Sidney; "forward, there."

Meanwhile, too tired to repair to her room for any toilette arrangements at that hour of the night, Harriet Wesden sits down between her mother and father, holding her bonnet on her lap. Mr. and Mrs. Wesden regard her proudly, as well they may, Harriet being a girl to be proud of—tall, graceful, and pretty, something that makes home bright to the parents, and has been long missed by them. No one is aware of all that they have sacrificed in their desire to make a lady of their only child—or of one-half of the hopes which they have built upon concerning her.

"This always seems such an odd, little box to come back to after the great Brighton school," she says, wearily; "oh, dear! how tired I am!"

"Get your supper, my dear, at once, and don't sit up for anybody to-night," suggests the mother.

"I don't want any supper. I—I think I'll go up-stairs at once and keep all my little anecdotes of school and schooling till the morrow. Shall I?"

"By all means, Harriet, if you're tired," says the father, "but after a long journey I would take something. You don't feel poorly, my dear?"

"Who?—I—oh! no," she answered, startled at the suggestion; "but I have been eating biscuits and other messes all the journey up to London, and therefore my appetite is spoiled for the night. To-morrow I shall be myself again—and we will have a long talk about all that has happened since I left here last year—by to-morrow, we shall have settled down so comfortably!"

"I hope so."

She looks timidly towards her father, but he is smoking his pipe, and placidly surveying her. She kisses him, then her mother, lastly Mattie, and leaves the room;—the instant afterwards Mattie remembers the unwieldy box, which Master, or Mr. Hinchford has carried up-stairs.

"She'll never uncord the box—I should like to help her, if you can spare me."

"Knots always did try the dear girl," affirms Mrs. Wesden, "go and help her by all means—my dear."

Mattie needs no second bidding; she darts from the room, and in a few minutes is at the top of the house; in her forgetfulness inside the room without so much as a "By your leave, Miss Wesden."

"Oh! dear, I forgot to knock—and oh! dear, dear!" rushing forward to Harriet sitting by the bedside and rocking herself to and fro, as though in pain, "what is the matter?—can I help you?—what has happened!"

A GIRL'S ROMANCE.

Miss Wesden continued to rock herself to and fro and moan at frequent intervals, after Mattie had intruded so unceremoniously upon her sorrows. She had reached the hysterical stage, and there was no stopping the tears and the little windy sobs by which they were varied—and Harriet Wesden in tears, the girl whom Mattie had reverenced so long, was too much for our small heroine.

"Oh! dear—what has happened?—shall I run and tell your father and mother?"

"Oh! for goodness sake, don't think of anything of the kind!" cried the startled Harriet; "I—I—I shall be better in a minute. It's only a spasm or something—it's nothing that any one—can—help me—with!"

"I know what it is," remarked Mattie, after a moment's reflection.

"You—you do, Mattie!"

"It's the wind," was the matter-of-fact reply; "you've been eating a heap of nasty buns, and then come up here without your supper—and it's brought on spasms, as you say."

"How ridiculous you are, child!" said this woman of seventeen, parting her fair hair back from her face, and making an effort to subdue her agitation; "don't you see that I am very, very miserable!"

"In earnest?"

"Are people ever really, truly miserable in fun, Mattie?" was the sharp rejoinder.

"Not truly miserable, I should fancy. But you—oh! Miss Harriet, you miserable, at your age!"

"Yes—it's a fact."

"Perhaps you have been robbed," suggested the curious Mattie; "I know that they used to send them out from Kent Street to hang about the railway stations. Never mind, Miss Harriet, I have been earning money, lately; and if you don't want your father to know how careless you have been——"

"Always unselfish—always thinking of doing some absurd action, that shall benefit any one of the name of Wesden. No, no, Mattie, it's not money, it's not that—that vulgar complaint you mentioned just now. Oh! to have one friend in the world in whom I could trust—in whom I could confide my misery!"

"And haven't you one?" was the soft answer.

Harriet looked up at the wistful face—so full of love and pity.

"Ah! there's you—you mean. But you are a child still, and would never understand me. You would never have sympathy with all that I have suffered, or keep my secret if you had."

"What I could understand, I cannot say—I'm still hard at work, in over-time, at my lessons—but you may be sure of my sympathy, and of my silence. It's not that I'm so curious, Miss Harriet—but that I hope, when I know all, to be a comfort to you."

Harriet shook her head despondently, and beat her tiny foot impatiently upon the carpet. Any one in the world to be a comfort to her, was a foolish idea, that only irritated her to allude to.

"I'm living here to be a comfort to you all," said Mattie, in a low voice; "I've set myself to be that, if ever I can. Every one in this house helped in a way to take me from the streets; every one has been more kind to me than I deserved—helped me on—given me good advice—done so much for me! I—I have often thought that perhaps my time might come some day to your family, or the Hinchfords; but if to you, my darling, whom I love before the whole of them—who has been more than kind—whom I loved when I was a little ragged girl in the dark streets outside—how happy I shall be!"

"Happy to see me miserable, Mattie—that's what that amounts to."

"I didn't mean that," answered Mattie, half-aggrieved.

"No, I'm sure you did not," was the reply. "Lock the door, my dear, and let me take you into my confidence—I do want some one to talk to about it terribly!"

Mattie locked the door, and, full of wonder, sat down by Harriet Wesden's side. The stationer's daughter had always treated Mattie as a companion rather than as a servant; she had but seen her in her holidays of late years—her father had trusted Mattie and made a shop-woman of her—she had found Mattie constituted after a while one of the family—Mattie was only a year her junior, and Mattie's love, almost her idolatry for her, had won upon a nature which, though far from faultless, was at least susceptible to kindness, ever touched by affection, and ever ready to return both.

"You must know, Mattie, then—and pray never breathe a syllable of this to mortal soul again—that I'm in love."

"Lor!" gasped Mattie.

"Dreadfully and desperately in love."

"Oh! hasn't it come early—and oh! ain't I dreadfully sorry."

"Hush, Mattie, not so loud. They'll be coming up to bed in the next room presently, and if they were to find it out, I should die."

"They wouldn't mind, after they had once got used to it," said Mattie; "and if it has really come to love in earnest—there's a good deal of sham love I've been told—why, I don't think there's anything to cry about. I should dance for joy myself."

"You're too young to know what you're talking about, Mattie," reproved Harriet.

"No, I'm not," was the quick answer; "I should feel very happy to know that there was some one to love me better than anybody in the world—to think of me first—pray about me before he went to bed at night—dream of me till the daytime—keep me always in his head. Why, shouldn't I be happy to know this, I who never remember what love was from anybody?"

"Yes, yes, I understand you, Mattie," said Harriet; "that's part of love—not all."

"What else is there?"

Mattie was evidently extremely curious concerning all phases of "the heart complaint."

"It's too complicated, Mattie; when you're a woman, you'll be able to find out for yourself. It's better not to trouble your head about it yet awhile."

"I wish you hadn't, Miss Harriet. It's not the likes of me that is going to think about it; and if you had left it till you were really a woman—I don't know much about the matter yet—but I'm thinking it would be all the better for you, too, my dear."

"It came all of a rush like—I wasn't thinking of it. There were two young men at first, who used to watch our school, and laugh at the biggest of us, and kiss their hands—just as young men will do, Mattie."

"Like their impudence, I think."

Mattie's matter-of-fact views were coming uppermost again. She had seen much of the world in her youth, experienced much hardship, worked hard for a living, and there was no romance in her disposition—only affection, which had developed of late years, thanks to her new training.

"But there's always a little fun amongst the big girls, Mattie."

"What is the governess about?"

"She's looking out—but, bless you, she may look!"

"Ah! I suppose so. Well?"

"And then one young man went away, and only one was left—the handsomer of the two—and he fell in love with me!"

"Really and truly?"

"Why, of course he did. Is it so wonderful?" and the boarding-school girl looked steadily at her companion.

Mattie looked at her. She was a beautiful girl, and perhaps it was not so wonderful, after all. But then Mattie still looked at Harriet Wesden as a child—even as a child younger than she whom the world had aged very early—rendered "old-fashioned," as the phrase runs, in many things.

"Not wonderful, perhaps—but wasn't it wrong?" asked Mattie.

"I don't think so—I never thought of that—he was very fond of me, and used to send me letters by the servant, and I—I did get very fond of him. He was a gentleman's son, and oh! so handsome, Mattie, and so tall, and so clever!"

"About your age, I suppose?"

"No, four-and-twenty, or more, perhaps. I don't know."

"Well?—oh! dear, how did it end?" asked Mattie; "it's like the story-books in the shop—isn't it?"

"Wait awhile, dear. The misery of the human heart is to be unfolded now. He's a gentleman's son, and there's an estate or something in West India or East India, or in some dreadful hot place over the water somewhere, where the natives hook themselves in the small of their backs, and swing about and say their prayers."

"How nasty!"

"And—and he—was to go there," her sobs beginning again at the reminiscence, "and live there, and," dropping her voice to a whisper, "he asked me if I'd run away with him, and be married to him over there."

Mattie clenched her fist spasmodically. She saw through the flimsy veil of romance, with a suddenness for which she was unprepared herself. She was a woman of the world, with a knowledge of the evil in it, on the instant.

"Oh! that man was a big scamp, I'm sure of it—I know it!"

"What makes you think that?" asked Harriet, imperiously.

"Couldn't he have come to Suffolk Street, and told your father all about it like a—like a man?"

"Yes, but his father—his father is a gentleman, and would never let him marry a poor, deplorable stationer's daughter."

"Ah! his father does not know you, and his father didn't have the chance of trying, I'm inclined to think," was the shrewd comment here.

"Never mind that," said Harriet, "I don't see that that's anything to do with the matter just now. I wouldn't run away; I was very frightened; I loved father and mother, and I knew how they loved me. And when I cried, he said he had only done it to try me, and then—and then—he went away next day for ever!"

"And a good riddance," muttered Mattie.

"Oh! Mattie, you cruel, cruel girl, is this the sympathy you talked about a little while ago?"

"I've every sympathy with you, my own dear young lady," said Mattie; "I'm sorry to see how this is troubling you—you so young!—just now. But I don't think he acted very properly, Miss Harriet, or that you were quite so careful of yourself as—as you might have been."

"I'm a wretched, wretched woman!"

"Does he know where you live?"

"Ye—es," she sobbed.

"And where did he live before he went to India?"

"Surrey."

"That's a large place, I think. I haven't turned to geography lately, but I fancy it's a double map. If that's all the address, it's a good big one. May I ask his name?"

"Never," was the melodramatic answer.

"Ah! it does not matter much. I hope, for the sake of all down-stairs, you will try and forget it. It's no credit; you were much too young, and he too old in everything. Oh! Miss Harriet, you and the other young ladies must have been going it down at Brighton!"

"It all happened suddenly, Mattie; I'm not a forward girl; they're all of my age—oh! and ever so much bolder."

"A very nice school that must be, I should think," said Mattie, leaving the bed for the box, which she proceeded to uncord; "if I ever hear of anybody wanting to send their daughters to a finishing akkademy," Mattie was not thoroughly up in pure English yet, "I'll just recommend that one!"

"Mattie," reproved Harriet, "you've got at all that you wanted to know, and now you're full of bitter sarcasm."

"I'm full of bitter nothing, Miss," was the reply; "and oh!—you don't know how sorry I feel that it has all happened, making you so old and womanly, before your time—filling your head with rubbish about—the chaps!"

Harriet said nothing—she sat and watched with dreamy eyes the process of uncording; only, when Mattie attempted to turn the box on its side, did she spring up and help to assist without a word.

"There, that'll do," she said peevishly; "let me only unlock the box, and get at my night-things, that's all I want. Mattie, for goodness sake, don't keep so in the way!"

Mattie stood aside, and Harriet Wesden, with an impatient hand, unlocked the box, and raised the heavy oaken lid. Mattie's eyes, sharp as needles, detected a small roll of written papers, neatly tied.

"Are these the letters, Miss Harriet?"

"Good gracious me, how curious and prying you are!" said Harriet, snatching the packet from her hand. "I wish I had never told you a syllable—I wish you'd leave my things alone!"

"I beg your pardon—I only asked. It was wrong."

"Well, there, I forgive you; but you are so tiresome, and old-fashioned. I can't make you out—I never shall—you're not like other girls."

"Was I brought up like other girls, you know?" was the sad question.

"No, no—I forgot that—I beg your pardon, Mattie; I didn't mean it for a taunt."

"God bless you, I know that. What are you doing?"

"Getting rid of these," thrusting the letters in the candle flame as she spoke. "I can trust you, but not them, Mattie."

"I'd hold them over the fire-place, then. If they drop on the toilet-table, we shall have the house a-fire."

Harriet took the advice proffered, and removed her combustibles to the place recommended. Mattie, on her knees by the box, watched the process.

"And there's an end of them," Harriet said at last, in a decisive tone.

"And of him—say of him?"

"We parted for ever—but I shall always think of him—think, too, that perhaps I was very young and thoughtless and vain, to lead him on, or to be led on. But oh! Mattie, he did love me—he wouldn't have harmed me for the world!"

"He hasn't spoken of writing—you haven't promised to write any more."

"No—it was a parting for ever. Haven't I said so, over and over again?"

"Then you'll soon forget him, Miss Harriet—try and forget him, for your own sake—you can't tell whether he wasn't making game of you, for certain; he didn't act well, for he wasn't a boy, was he? And now go to sleep, and wake up in the morning your old self, Miss."

"I'll try—I must try!"

"I don't think that this fine gentleman will ever turn up again; if he does, you'll be older to take your own part. Oh! dear, how contrary things do go, to be sure."

"What's the matter now?"

"I did think I knew whom you were to marry."

"Who was it?" said Harriet, with evident interest in her question.

"Well, I thought, Miss Harriet, that you'd grow up, and grow up to be a young woman, and that Master Sidney underneath, would grow up, and grow up to be a young man, and you'd fall naturally in love with one another—marry, and be oh! so happy. When I'm hard at work at the lessons he or his father writes out for me sometimes, I catch myself forgetting all about them, and thinking of you and him together—and I your servant, perhaps, or little housekeeper. I've always thought that that would come to pass some day, and that he'd grow rich, and make a lady of you—and it made me happy to think that the two, who'd been perhaps the kindest in all the world to me, would marry some fine day. I've pictered it—pictured it," she corrected, "many and many a time, until I fancied at last it must come true."

"Master Sidney, indeed!" was the disparaging comment.

"When you know him, you won't talk like that," said Mattie; "he's a gentleman—growing like one fast—and I don't think, young as he is, that he would have acted like that other one you've been silly enough to think about."

"Silly!—oh! Mattie, Mattie, that isn't sympathy with me—I don't know whether you're a child, or an old woman—you talk like both of them, and in one breath. Why did I tell you!—why did I tell you!"

"Because I was in earnest, and begged hard—because I was afraid, and you could not keep such a secret from me as that; and if you had wanted help—how I would have stood by you!"

Harriet noted the kindling eyes, and her heart warmed to the nondescript.

"Thank you, Mattie—one friend at least now."

"Always,—don't you think so?"

"Yes, I do."

Mattie was at the door, when Harriet called her back.

"Mattie, never a word about this again. I daresay I shall soon forget it, for I am very young; and though it was love, yet I won't let it break my heart. I'm very wretched now. I shall be glad," she added with a yawn, "to lie down and think of all my sorrows."

"And sleep them away."

"Oh! I shall not close an eye to-night. Good night, Mattie."

Miss Harriet Wesden, a young lady who had begun life early, was sleeping soundly three minutes after Mattie's departure from the room.