CHAPTER XIX.

Sally, brimming over with delightful memories of the happy days passed in the cottage by the sea, was not slow to communicate her experiences to her young friends and playmates in Rosemary Lane. The wonderful stories she had to tell, and the wonderful way in which she related them, caused the children's eyes to dilate and their breasts to throb. Sally was an artist, and, in a more effective manner than would have been adopted by a more polished narrator, she painted her pictures in exactly those colours which made them alluring to an audience not over-gifted with learning and intelligence. In all these pictures, the Duchess was the central figure. She was the princess for whom the flowers bloomed and the sea whispered musically. The happy rides, the pleasant meals, the delicious idling, the soft murmurs of woodland life, were all for the Duchess, and, but for her, would not have been. Sally's tongue was never idle when there was an opportunity to glorify her idol, and the devoted child had never been so rich in opportunity as at the present time. Among other stories related by her, was, of course, the story of the Duchess's portrait being taken surrounded by flowers, which Sally declared was "out and out the most beautiful thing as ever was seen;" and public curiosity being excited, Seth Dumbrick was besieged by applicants eager to see the pictures. These visits were the means of his ingratiating himself into the more favourable opinion of his neighbours, who said to one another that Seth Dumbrick was becoming quite an agreeable man. Even to Mrs. Preedy he was gracious, and for fully three weeks that inveterate gossip had not a word to say to his disparagement.

So, being once more settled down quietly in his stall, with sufficient work for the hours, Seth hammered and patched away from morning till night, and but for certain fears connected with the Duchess, would have been a perfectly happy man. One of these fears related to the fortune-telling incident; he was unreasonably apprehensive that by some means or other the Duchess would be tracked and spirited away by the gentleman with whom he had had high words at Springfield; he did not stop to reason upon the motive which would lead to such an act. His other fear related to the bank-note, so strangely forwarded to the Duchess, which had paid for their holiday. If he had known where to seek for a clue to the discovery of the sender of the money, it is doubtful whether he would have availed himself of it; his earnest wish was that the matter should rest where it was, and that he and the Duchess and Sally should be allowed to live their quiet, uneventful life unmolested. If he saw the postman coming along the street, he watched his progress nervously, dreading that another letter for the Duchess might arrive, and when the man passed without look or word, the cheerful hammering upon the leather, or the more vigorous plying of the awl, denoted how greatly he was relieved.

Weeks and months passing in this way brought repose to his mind, and he sometimes smiled at himself for the uneasy fancies, born of love and fear, which had so tormented him. His love for the Duchess increased with time; she was for ever in his thoughts; over his bed, in a frame and protected by a glass, hung her picture, which was to him as beautiful as the most beautiful Madonna in the eyes of a devout woman; there was not speck or flaw on her, materially or spiritually; she was the queen of his life and household. Would the Duchess like this? Would the Duchess like that? What can we do for her? How can we serve her?--everything was done by Seth and Sally that could contribute to the easy and pleasant passing of her days. Their old clothes were darned and patched, and darned and patched again and again, so that the Duchess might have pretty things to wear. They were continually buying flowers and bits of ribbons for her, and casting about for ways and means to bring new pleasures into her days. In this twelve months passed, and the summer came round again. Sitting at their midday meal, Sally remarked that this time last year they were going into the country. Seth referred to a small memorandum book, the recipient of a singular medley of notes and observations.

"To-morrow morning's exactly a year," he said, "since we started."

Sally sighed, and Seth saw with pain a look of regret in the Duchess's eyes. It was not a calm regret; there was nothing of resignation in it. It expressed a struggle to be free from the thraldom of poverty, a rebellious repining at the hardship of Fate. As Seth was considering whether any ingenious twisting of Billy Spike's philosophy would afford consolation, a double knock at the stall above was heard. He mounted the steps, and confronted the postman.

"A letter for the Duchess of Rosemary Lane."

Seth received it with a sinking heart, and putting it hastily into his pocket, descended to the living-room.

"Who was it, Daddy?" asked Sally.

"Mrs. Simpson sent for the child's boot," replied Seth, with a guilty palpitation; "it ain't done yet."

He finished his dinner in silence, listening to reminiscences of last year's delightful holiday, called up by Sally and the Duchess. He did not take the letter from his pocket until late in the night, when he was alone. He gazed at it for a few moments, believing it contained a realization of his fears, and that it might be the means of parting him and the Duchess. If he had not been a just man, he would have destroyed the letter, but he was restrained by the reflection that it might be of importance to the future of the child he loved. With reluctant fingers he unfastened the envelope, and found in it a bank-note for five pounds. As with the letter received last year, it did not contain a single word that would furnish a clue. He had carefully preserved the first envelope, and comparing the writing on the two, he judged it to be from one hand.

"Who is it that sends the money?" he mused. "A man or a woman? That's the first point. There's a difference in handwriting, I've heard. I must find a way to make sure of that. I suppose the note's as good as the one sent last year."

Before the afternoon of the following day, he had thought over a lame little scheme, which he put into execution without delay. He walked to the shop of a tradesman, of whom he was in the habit of buying tools and leather, and having made some small purchases, he offered the note in payment. It was taken, and change given, without remark. "Is your wife at home?" then asked Seth.

"Yes," replied the tradesman.

"I'd like to see her," said Seth; "I want to ask her about something that a woman knows better than a man."

The tradesman called his wife, and Seth had a quiet talk with her. He commenced in a roundabout way.

"It's about a friend of mine," he said, "an unmarried man like myself, but more likely to marry, being younger. He's received a letter without a signature, and he's mighty anxious to find out whether it comes from a man or a woman. It's a delicate matter you see."

The tradesman's wife did not see, but she waited patiently for further light.

"The fact is," continued Seth, "there's a girl he knows and has a fancy for, that another man knows and has a fancy for."

"It's a love letter, then," interrupted the tradesman's wife, with a smile.

"Yes," said Seth, gladly accepting the suggestion, "and he naturally wishes to know who wrote it."

"Yes."

"Now the first thing to discover is whether it's a man's or a woman's writing."

"How can I help you to discover that?"

"If you will be good enough to write just a couple of words--say, Rosemary Lane--on a bit of paper, it might assist us."

The woman wrote down the words, and wrote them without a curve; every letter had in it as many angles as it could conveniently accommodate. After this, Seth asked the woman if her daughters would write the same words on separate pieces of paper, and then he obtained a specimen of writing from the tradesman himself. He paid visits to many places that afternoon, with the same purpose in view, and by the evening he had in his pocket between twenty and thirty different specimens of calligraphy. When the children were asleep he continued his examination, and discovered that, without an exception, all the women wrote in angles and all the men in curves. Comparing the writing with that on the envelopes, he came to the conclusion that the addresses were written and the money sent by a woman.

He derived an odd kind of satisfaction from this result There was less danger to be feared from a woman than from a man, and, without difficulty, Seth invented a dozen different sets of circumstances to fit the case, in all of which the woman who was in this way kind to the Duchess was never to make herself known. The money clearly belonged to the Duchess, and the conscientious man decided that it must be spent on the Duchess, and on the Duchess alone. The child had had her ears pierced, and wore in them a pair of rough glass earrings bought by Sally for a few pence on the anniversary of her idol's birthday.

No one knew how old the Duchess exactly was, or on what day she was born; but a birthday was such a happy occasion for love-gifts, and the Duchess so fit a person to give them to, that a natal day was fixed for her. Of course a suitable one. "March winds and April showers bring forth May flowers." Sally knew the rhyme, and settled that the Duchess was born when the flowers were born, on the 1st of May. On the Duchess's last birthday Sally had presented the glass earrings, and the pleasure derived from the giving and the receiving was as great as if the bits of glass had been diamonds. The Duchess never tired of admiring herself in the little tin-framed mirror fixed by the side of the bed, and shook her head to make the crystals sparkle, and played at hide and peep with them, hiding them in her hair and shaking them free again. A fair meed of admiration was also passed upon them by her playmates, and the Duchess thought them the loveliest things in the world until one unhappy day she heard an ill-natured woman call them "bits of trumpery glass." From that moment they became less precious in the Duchess's eyes, and a secret longing crept into her mind for something more valuable to show off her pretty ears. About this time Mrs. Preedy, having occasion to go westward, invited the Duchess to accompany her, to see the carriages and fine folks in the Park. Without asking for permission from her guardian, the Duchess accepted the invitation joyfully, and as she walked along by the side of Mrs. Preedy, her quick eye took in everything of note that passed her; but most of all did she notice the gold ornaments worn by the ladies, and yearned for them in her heart of hearts.

"Such heaps of rich people, Duchess," observed Mrs. Preedy. "It's like a show."

"There's nothing in the world like being rich," observed the Duchess.

"No, that there's not," replied the woman heartily. "Why," presently continued the Duchess, "are some people rich and other people poor?"

"Oh, I don't know," said Mrs. Preedy peevishly; "it's all in the way we're born. Ladies and gentlemen ain't born in Rosemary Lane."

"I wasn't born in Rosemary Lane," mused the Duchess, in a tone which was in itself an assertion of superiority over her companion.

"Do you know where you was born?" asked Mrs. Preedy.

"No," was the reply, "but not in Rosemary Lane."

"What do you remember before you came to Rosemary Lane?" continued Mrs. Preedy, growing interested in the conversation.

"I don't remember coming to Rosemary Lane," said the Duchess; "I had a mamma once."

"Where?"

"I don't know; in a garden, I think."

"Like anybody you see?"

"Like her," said the Duchess, pointing to a lady who was stepping from a carriage. In the lady's face dwelt an expression of much sadness and sweetness, which seemed to be the natural outcome of a sad and sweet nature. The Duchess's observance of the lady drew her attention to the child, and she stopped and spoke, and asked Mrs. Preedy if the pretty creature was her daughter.

"No, indeed, ma'am," said Mrs. Preedy, with a curtsey; "she has no mother, poor dear, and she was just saying that you were like her mamma."

"Her mamma!" exclaimed the lady, with a look of surprise; "where do you come from, then?"

"From Rosemary Lane, if you please," said the obsequious Mrs. Preedy, who was always deferential to those above her.

"And where may that be?"

"In the east, if you please," with another curtsey.

The lady, with languid humour, suggested "Jerusalem?" and then asked the Duchess if she would like a cake. They were standing in front of a confectioner's shop, and the child, with as much self-possession (as Mrs. Preedy afterwards remarked when she related the adventure) as if she had been a born lady, withdrew her hand from Mrs. Preedy, and held it out to the lady, who smilingly led her into the shop, and feasted her and Mrs. Preedy to their heart's content. They had cakes and jellies, and strawberries and cream, and the lady chatted with the Duchess, and praised her beauty, in the most gracious and affable manner. Altogether, it was a very pleasant time, and formed quite an event in Mrs. Preedy's life, who for months and months gave most vivid descriptions of the entertainment, never forgetting to add that when they went into the Park later in the day they met the lady driving in her carriage there, and that she nodded and smiled in recognition of them.

Seth Dumbrick also went westwards in search of a present for the Duchess, to be paid for out of the money which was hers, and staring in the shop-windows, was greatly bewildered by the attractive articles there displayed. Silk sashes and neckerchiefs, natty kid boots and fascinating hats, distracted him with their claims. Had he been a well-to-do man, there is no knowing what extravagance he might have committed. At length he stationed himself before a jeweller's window, and gazed upon the beautiful articles exhibited in it, now deciding upon this, now upon that; and, in the end, upon a pair of gold earrings, tastefully designed to represent shells. He had no idea of the value of such articles, and it was with something of trepidation he entered the shop, where his appearance was viewed with suspicion by the salesman, who saw no fitness between the unshaven chin and grimy fingers of the workman and the graceful devices in gold and silver displayed for sale. A bargain, however, was soon concluded, and Seth became possessor of the earrings on payment of half the money he held in trust for the Duchess. Then he went to a milliner's shop, where he seemed even more out of place than in the jeweller's, and for twenty shillings bought one of the prettiest hats in all the stock. Enjoying in anticipation the delight of the Duchess, he walked home very contentedly, and artfully turned the conversation upon last year's holiday, saying in a melancholy tone:

"No holiday this year, Duchess."

Sally shook her head mournfully.

"Can't afford it, eh, Sally? Now, what's the next best thing to the holiday we can't afford? What do you say to a present--something pretty for--who do you think?"

"For the Duchess!" cried Sally.

The Duchess looked up eagerly.

"Yes, for the Duchess. These, for instance."

He carefully untied the little packet wrapt in silver tissue-paper, carefully opened the leather case, and pointed triumphantly to the earrings nestling softly in their blue-velvet couches. Sally clapped her hands, and jumped up; the Duchess gazed on the pretty ornaments with parted lips and eyes aglow with admiration.

"For me!" she exclaimed, almost under her breath. "For me!"

"For you, Duchess," said Seth. "What do you think of 'em?"

She threw her arms round his neck, and kissed him, with perhaps more affection than she had ever shown towards him, and then turned hastily to the earrings, in fear lest they might have vanished from the table. The glittering ornaments fitted her nature most thoroughly and completely. They seemed to say, "We are yours. You are ours. We belong to each other. You have no business to wear bits of trumpery glass. We are what you have a right to possess." There was absolute harmony between her and the pretty things, and she experienced a new and singularly entrancing pleasure in merely gazing upon them.

"Is one kiss all you will give me for them?" asked Seth.

"No, no," she replied; "I will give you a thousand thousand."

She smothered him with kisses, murmuring: "I love you for them, I love you for them."

"They are real gold," said Seth, more than satisfied with his bargain. "What will Rosemary Lane say to that?"

With trembling fingers the Duchess lifted the earrings from the case. Had they been imbued with feeling she could not have felt more tender towards them.

"May I put them in?"

"Surely, my dear; I bought them for you to wear."

The Duchess hastily unhooked Sally's birthday gift from her ears, and threw it on the table, replacing it with the more valuable and therefore more precious offering. A pang shot through Sally's breast as she witnessed the action. The bits of trumpery glass, albeit they cost but a few pence, had not been easily obtained by her; they were the result of many weeks' saving of farthings and halfpence, and to pay for them she had put down with a strong spirit a number of small cravings. Not that the saving and scraping was not in itself a delight to her; to deny herself in order that the Duchess might be gratified was one of her sweetest pleasures. The common glass earrings were her love-gift, and she had dreamt of them long before and after they were presented; and to see them now so carelessly thrust aside brought the tears to her eyes. She brushed them instantly away. The Duchess, with a piece of broken looking-glass in her hand, was walking up and down the cellar, gazing at the reflection of the new earrings, with eyes so sparkling that they outshone the glittering baubles. As she turned this way and that, now bending forward, now leaning back, in enchanting attitudes, holding the glass so that the ornaments were always in view, a thousand graces and charms were depicted in her of which for the time she was unconscious. Sally, despite her sorrow at the despisal of her love-gift, could not help admiring the beautiful picture, and when the Duchess came close to her, she drew her idol to her breast, and kissed her passionately.

"Don't!" said the Duchess, with a little struggle to be free; "you hurt me, Sally!"

Sally's arms relaxed, and she turned aside with quivering lips; for a moment, everything swam before her eyes, and she felt quite faint.

"And that's not all," said Seth; "I have something else for our Duchess."

"Oh, what is it, what is it?" cried the Duchess, springing to his side.

"See," he said, holding up the hat, "what will Rosemary Lane say to this? Sally, fit it on, and let us see how our princess looks in it."

Sally kept her sobs back with a vicious pinch of her own arm which almost made her scream, and placed the hat on the Duchess's head, to the best advantage be sure. There was no meanness in Sally's soul. She could suffer and be strong. Nothing would satisfy the Duchess that afternoon but to dress herself in her best clothes, and go out and show herself. It was done; and in her blue-merino dress, her boots made for her in the most dainty fashion by Seth's loving hands, her hat and her gold earrings, she walked about Rosemary Lane, with Sally by her side, the envy and admiration of all beholders. In the eyes of the Rosemary Lane folk Sally was a most complete foil to the beautiful Duchess. Her hands were dirty, and her clothes had many a hole in them; but there was a soft light in her eyes, and an expression of deep, almost suffering devotion in her face, which might have attracted the attention of close observers--and not entirely to Sally's disadvantage. The Duchess had an afternoon of rare enjoyment; even those who envied her paid court to her, and her train included all the young radicals in Rosemary Lane who had hitherto held aloof from her, but who now, fairly conquered by the splendour of her personal adornment, fell down and worshipped. It was the story of the golden calf over again--the old story which to-day is being enacted with so much fervour by beggar and millionaire, from Whitechapel to Belgravia. Late at night, when the Duchess was asleep with her gold earrings in her ears, and her new hat hanging by the side of her bed, so that she might see it the moment she awoke in the morning, Sally, with tears in her eyes, wrapt the bits of trumpery glass in paper, and placed them carefully away. "She'll be hunting about for 'em soon," thought Sally, "and then I'll give 'em to her." But the Duchess never sought, never asked for the common love-gift; it was worthless in her eyes, being worthless in itself; she had gold earrings now, and perhaps by-and-by--who could tell?--she would have earrings with sparkling stones in them, worth a handful of money. For in the Duchess's soul was growing a most intense hankering after fine things. She would wander by herself away from Sally and Seth and Rosemary Lane into the thoroughfares frequented by ladies and gentlemen, and watch them and their dress and ways with an eager, strange, and restless spirit. She saw children beautifully dressed riding in carriages; and, yearning to be like them, would shed rebellious tears at the fate which bound her to Rosemary Lane. It is not to be supposed that she considered this matter as clearly as it is here briefly expressed; she was not yet old enough to give it clear expression; but she felt it; the seed of discontent was implanted within her, and grew for lack of material and intellectual light. Intellectual light Seth Dumbrick certainly did give the Duchess, but it was light of a kind which dazed and confused her mental vision. The experiences of the man who mingles freely with men, who shares their pleasures and sorrows, and even their follies and foibles, are of infinitely higher value than those of a solitary liver. Such an existence narrows the sympathies, and it narrowed Seth's. The exercise of all the better feelings of his nature was confined to the small circle which included only Sally and the Duchess, and what of good he saw outside that boundary was evoked by his love for these children of his adoption. Surrounded by these influences the Duchess grew in years. Seth bestowed upon her the fullest measure of affection, and he let her go her way. He placed no restraint upon her; he demanded no sacrifice from her. He never attended a place of worship, nor did she; he had his hard-and-fast opinions upon religious matters, which, viewed in the light (or darkness) of dogmatic belief, constituted him a materialist--an accusation which, with a proper understanding of the term, he would have indignantly denied. Thus, from month to month, and year to year, Rosemary Lane passed through a routine of daily tasks and duties, so dull as to weigh sorely and heavily upon the soul of the Duchess. Colour was necessary to her existence, and she sought for it and obtained it in other places. Stronger and stronger grew her passion for wandering from the narrow to the wider spaces, where the life was more in harmony with her desires, and so frequently and for so long a time was she now absent that, on one occasion when she was missing from morning till night, Seth took her to task for her truant propensities.

"Do you want me to keep always in Rosemary Lane?" she inquired, with her lovely blue eyes fixed full upon him.

"It would be best," was his reply.

"It doesn't matter to you," she said, "whether I stop at home or not; there is nothing for me to do, and I sometimes feel that--that----"

Her eyes wandered round the cellar in dull discontent, and with something of self-reproach, also, for the feeling which she strove but could not find words to express.

"Well, my dear?" said Seth, patiently waiting for an explanation.

"Only this, guardian," she rejoined, "that I must go away when I like, and that you mustn't stop me. If you do"--with a little laugh which might mean anything or nothing--"I might run away altogether."

"Then there are other places," said Seth, after a short pause; he found it necessary very often when conversing with the Duchess to consider his words before he uttered them; "and other people that you love better than us."

"Other places, not other people. I don't know any other people."

"You don't love Rosemary Lane, my dear," he said wistfully.

"What is there to love in it?" she replied, evading the question. "I might love it less if I were not free to go from it when the fit seizes me----"

"But you go always alone, my dear," he said, with a sigh, "and I am afraid you might get into mischief."

"What mischief?" she asked, with innocent wonder in her face. "No one would hurt me. Everybody is kind to me. But as you seem to care for it, I'll take Sally with me now and then. So here's a kiss, guardian, and we'll say no more about it."

Time ripened, but did not beautify Sally. Her figure was awkward and ungainly, and her limbs had not the roundness or the grace of those of the Duchess. Her face was at once too young and too old for her age; you saw in it both the innocence and simplicity of the child and the wary look of the woman of the world who knows that snares abound. Her skin was as brown as a berry, and her form appeared lank and thin, although she and the Duchess were of the same height. Undressing one night, they stood, with bare shoulders, side by side, looking into the glass. The contrast was very striking, and both saw and felt it, the Duchess with a joyous palpitation because of her beauty, and Sally with no repining because of her lack of it. The contrast was striking even in the quality and fashion of their linen, Sally's being coarse, and brown as the skin it covered, and the Duchess's being white and fine, with delicate edgings about it.

"I don't believe," said Sally, with tender admiration, her brown arm embracing the Duchess's white shoulder, "that there's another girl in the world with such a skin, and such eyes, and altogether as pretty as you are, Duchess."

"Do you really mean it, Sally?" asked the Duchess, as though the observation were made for the first instead of the thousandth time.

"You know I do."

"I think you do," said the Duchess, showing her teeth of pearl. "But if I were to say the same of myself, you'd say I was the vainest instead of the prettiest girl that breathes."

"A girl can't help knowing she's pretty," said Sally philosophically; she had imbibed much of the spirit and some of the peculiarities of Seth's utterances, "if she is pretty; and can't help being glad of it. As you are, of course, Duchess."

"Yes, I am glad, Sally; I can't tell you how glad. I should be a miserable girl if I were like----"

She paused suddenly, with a guilty blush, being about to say, "if I were like you, Sally."

Sally smiled. "I don't doubt I should be glad if I had a skin as white, and eyes as blue, and lips as red as yours; but for all that, I don't seem to be sorry because I am ugly. For I am very ugly!"

She gazed at the reflection of herself in the glass with eyes that were almost merry, and despite her self-depreciation there was something very attractive in her appearance. The grace of youth was hers, and the kindliness and unselfishness of her nature imparted a charm to her face which mere beauty of feature could not supply.

"You are not so very ugly," observed the Duchess.

"No?" questioned Sally.

"No. You are as good-looking as most of the girls in Rosemary Lane----"

"Leaving you out," interrupted Sally quickly.

"Yes," said the Duchess complacently, "leaving me out. Your teeth are not white, but they are regular, and I like your mouth, Sally"--kissing it--"though it is a little bit too large. Your hair isn't as silky as mine----"

"Oh, no, Duchess, how could it be?"

"But it is longer and stronger; and as for your eyes, you have no idea how they sparkle. They are full of fire."

"If a fairy was to come to me to-night," said Sally, delighted at the Duchess's praises, "and give me wishes, I don't think I would have myself changed."

"I know what I would wish for."

"What?"

"Silk dresses and furs and kid gloves and gold watches and chains and bracelets; carriages and footmen and white dogs; flowers and fans and lace pocket-handkerchiefs and----"

"Oh, my!" exclaimed Sally. "We shouldn't have room for them all. Goodnight. I'm so sleepy."

The Duchess dreamt that all the things she wished for were hers, and that she was a fine lady, driving in her carriage through Rosemary Lane, with all the neighbours cheering and bowing to her.

In this way, and with this kind of teaching, the Duchess grew from child to woman. And here for a time we drop the curtain. The silent years, fraught with smiles and tears, roll on; for some the buds are blossoming; for some the leaves are falling; the young look forward to the sunny land they shall never reach; the old look back with sighs upon days made happy by regret. And midst the triumph and the anguish, the hope and fear, the joy and sorrow, Time, with passionless finger, marks the record, and pushes us gently on towards the grave.