Jessie poured out a cup of cold tea, gazing pathetically the while at the pile of money which still lay glittering on the table.
Ruth’s letter contained two 5 pounds Bank of England notes, and ran as follows:—
“Dearest Jessie and Kate,—I sent your screen to the institution for the sale of needlework, where it was greatly admired. One gentleman said it was quite a work of genius! a lady, who seemed to estimate genius more highly than the gentleman, bought it for 10 pounds, which I now enclose. In my opinion it was worth far more. However, it is gratifying that your first attempt in this way has been successful.
“Your loving Ruth.”
“Loving indeed!” exclaimed Kate in a tremulous voice.
Jessie appeared to have choked on the cold tea, for, after some ineffectual attempts at speech, she retired to the window and coughed.
The first act of the sisters, on recovering, was to double the amount on Ruth’s list of poor people, and to work out another sum in short division on the back of an old letter.
“Why did you deceive me, dear?” said Mrs Dotropy, on reaching the street after her visit. “You said you were going with me to see poor people, in place of which you have taken me to hear a consultation about poor people with two ladies, and now you propose to return home.”
“The two ladies are themselves very poor.”
“No doubt they are, child, but you cannot for a moment class them with those whom we usually style ‘the poor.’”
“No, mother, I cannot, for they are far worse off than these. Having been reared in affluence, with tenderer feelings and weaker muscles, as well as more delicate health, they are much less able to fight the battle of adversity than the lower poor, and I happen to know that the dear Misses Seaward are reduced just now to the very last extreme of poverty. But you have relieved them, mother.”
“I, child! How?”
“The nursery screen that you bought yesterday by my advice was decorated by Jessie and Kate Seaward, so I thought it would be nice to let you see for yourself how sweet and ‘deserving’ are the poor people whom you have befriended!”
Chapter Three.
Introduces Consternation to A Delicate Household
The day following that on which Mrs Dotropy and Ruth had gone out to visit “the poor,” Jessie and Kate Seaward received a visit from a man who caused them no little anxiety—we might almost say alarm. He was a sea-captain of the name of Bream.
As this gentleman was rather eccentric, it may interest the reader to follow him from the commencement of the day on which we introduce him.
But first let it be stated that Captain Bream was a fine-looking man, though large and rugged. His upper lip and chin were bare, for he was in the habit of mowing those regions every morning with a blunt razor. To see Captain Bream go through this operation of mowing when at sea in a gale of wind was a sight that might have charmed the humorous, and horrified the nervous. The captain’s shoulders were broad, and his bones big; his waistcoat, also, was large, his height six feet two, his voice a profound bass, and his manner boisterous but hearty. He was apt to roar in conversation, but it was in a gale of wind that you should have heard him! In such circumstances, the celebrated bull of Bashan would have been constrained to retire from his presence with its tail between its legs. When we say that Captain Bream’s eyes were kind eyes, and that the smile of his large mouth was a winning smile, we have sketched a full-length portrait of him,—or, as painters might put it, an “extra-full-length.”
Well, when Captain Bream, having mown his chin, presented himself in public, on the morning of the particular day of which we write, he appeared to be in a meditative mood, and sauntered slowly, with the professional gait of a sailor, through several narrow streets near London Bridge. His hands were thrust into his coat-pockets, and a half humorous, half perplexed expression rested on his face. Evidently something troubled him, and he gave vent to a little of that something in deep tones, being apt to think aloud as he went along in disjointed sentences.
“Very odd,” he murmured, “but that girl is always after some queer—well, no matter. It’s my business to—but it does puzzle me to guess why she should want me to live in such an out-o’-the-way—however, I suppose she knows, and that’s enough for me.”
“Shine yer boots, sir?” said a small voice cutting short these broken remarks.
“What?”
“Shine yer boots, sir, an’ p’raps I can ’elp yer to clear up yer mind w’en I’m a doin’ of it.”
It was the voice of a small shoeblack, whose eyes looked wistful.
The captain glanced at his boots; they wanted “shining” sadly, for the nautical valet who should have attended to such matters had neglected his duty that morning.
“Where d’ee live, my lad?” asked the captain, who, being large-hearted and having spent most of his life at sea, felt unusual interest in all things terrestrial when he chanced to be on shore.
“I live nowheres in par-tickler,” answered the boy.
“But where d’ee sleep of a night?”
“Vell, that depends. Mostly anywheres.”
“Got any father?”
“No, sir, I hain’t; nor yet no mother—never had no fathers nor mothers, as I knows on, an’ wot’s more, I don’t want any. They’re a chancey lot, is fathers an’ mothers—most of ’em. Better without ’em altogether, to my mind. Tother foot, sir.”
Looking down with a benignant smile at this independent specimen of humanity, the captain obeyed orders.
“D’ee make much at this work now, my lad?” asked the captain.
“Not wery much, sir. Just about enough to keep soul an’ body together, an’ not always that. It was on’y last veek as I was starvin’ to that extent that my soul very nigh broke out an’ made his escape, but the doctor he got ’old of it by the tail an’ ’eld on till ’e indooced it to stay on a bit longer. There you are, sir; might shave in ’em!”
“How much to pay?”
“Vell, gen’lemen usually gives me a penny, but that’s in or’nary cases. Ven I has to shine boots like a pair o’ ships’ boats I looks for suthin’ hextra—though I don’t always get it!”
“There you are, my lad,” said the captain, giving the boy something “hextra,” which appeared to satisfy him. Thereafter he proceeded to the Bridge, and, embarking on one of the river steamers, was soon deposited at Pimlico. Thence, traversing St. George’s Square, he soon found himself in the little street in which dwelt the Misses Seaward. He looked about him for some minutes and then entered a green-grocer’s shop, crushing his hat against the top of the door-way.
Wishing the green-grocer good-morning he asked if lodgings were to be had in that neighbourhood.
“Well, yes, sir,” he replied, “but I fear that you’d find most of ’em rather small for a man of your size.”
“No fear o’ that,” replied the captain with a loud guffaw,
