The Little Princess of Tower Hill

"She has got well again, you know, Ralph, and I promised she should meet me in the country somewhere where the grass is green, and yet I don't know how she's to come. I have got no money, and Jo has got no money, and father and mother don't say any thing about it. It would be a dreadful thing for Jo to stay away from heaven – for she was very, very near going to heaven, Ralph – and then to find that I had broken my word to her, and that after all we were never to see each other where the grass is green."

"It would be worse than dreadful," answered Ralph, "it would be downright cruel and wicked. Dear little Jo! she'd like to come here and look at the bunnies, wouldn't she? Well, I've got no money either, and she can't be got into the country without money; that I do know. Perhaps I'd better speak to mother about it."

But Ralph, when he did question Mrs. Grenville on the subject, found her wonderfully silent, and in his opinion unsympathetic. She said that she could not possibly interfere with Sir John and Lady Ascot in their own place, and that if she were Ralph she would let things alone, and trust to the Ascots doing what was right in the matter.

But Ralph was not inclined to take this advice.

"I like Maggie for being good about Jo," he said, "and Jo shan't be disappointed. I'll go myself to Uncle John; he probably only needs to have the thing put plainly to him."

Sir John listened to the little boy's somewhat excited remarks with an amused twinkle in his eyes.

"So the princess has sent you to me, my lad?" he said. "You tell her to keep her little mind tranquil, and to try to trust her old father."

Little Jo Aylmer came very slowly back to health and strength, but at last there arrived a day when the hospital nurse pronounced her cured, and when her mother arrived in a cab to take her away.

The hospital nurse had tears in her eyes when she kissed Jo, and the other sick children in the ward were extremely sorry to say good-by to her, for little Jo, without making any extraordinary efforts, indeed without making any efforts at all, had a wonderful faculty for inspiring love. No doubt she was sympathetic, and no doubt also she was self-forgetful, and her ready tact prevented her saying the words which might hurt or doing the deeds which might annoy, and these apparently trivial traits in her character may have helped to make her popular. On that particular sunshiny afternoon the preparations made by certain excited little people in Philmer's Buildings were great. From the day Jo was pronounced out of danger Susy had begun to recover her spirits, and at any rate to forgive herself for her conduct in the matter of the tambourine. She had not spent any of the seven shillings which the pawnbroker had given for poor Maggie's best hat; it had all been securely tucked away in her best white cotton pocket-handkerchief, and neither her mother nor the boys knew of its existence, for to purchase a tambourine while Jo was so ill, and Maggie supposed to be dying was beyond even thoughtless Susy's desires.

After her own fashion, this rather heedless little girl had suffered a good deal during the past weeks, and suffering did her good, as it does all other creatures.

Now, while the boys were very busy getting the room into a festive condition for Jo, Susy quietly and softly withdrew one shilling from her mysterious hoard, and went out to make purchases. A shilling means almost nothing to some people; they spend it on utter rubbish – they virtually throw it away. This was, however, by no means the case with Susy Aylmer; she knew a shilling's worth to the uttermost farthing, and it was surprising with what a number of parcels she returned home.

"Now, Ben and Bob, we'll lay the tea-table," she said, addressing her excited little brothers. "Yere, put the cloth straight, do – you know as Jo can't abide nothing crooked. Now then, out comes the fresh loaf as mother bought; pop it on the cracked plate, and put it here, a little to one side – it looks more genteel – not right away in the very middle. Here goes the teapot – oh, my! ain't it a pity as the spout is cracked off? – and here's the little yaller jug for the milk! Here's butter, too – Dosset, but not bad. Now then, we begins on my purchases. A slice of 'am on this tiny plate for Jo; red herrings, which we'll toast up and make piping hot presently; a nice little bundle of radishes, creases ditto. Oh, my heyes! I do like creases, they're so nice and biting. Now then, what 'ave we 'ere? – why, a big packet of lollipops; I got the second quality of lollipops, so I 'as quite a big parcel; and the man threw in two over, 'cause I said they was for a gal just out of 'ospital. Shrimps is in this 'ere bag. Now, boys, there ain't none of these 'ere for you, they're just for mother and Jo, and no one else – don't you be greedy, Ben and Bob, for ef you are, I'll give you something to remember. Yere's a real fresh egg, which must be boiled werry light – that's for Jo, of course – and 'ere's a penn'orth of dandy-o-lions to stick in the middle of the table. Yere they goes into this old brown cracked jug, and don't they look fine? Well, I'm sure I never see'd a more genteel board."

The boys thoroughly agreed with Susy on this point, and while they were skipping and dancing about, and making many dives at the tempting eatables, and Susy was chasing them with loud whoops, half of anger, half of mirth, about the room, Mrs. Aylmer and the little pale, spiritual-looking sister arrived.

At the sight of Jo the children felt their undue excitement subsiding – their happiness became peace, as it always did in her blessed little presence.

There was no wrangling or quarreling over the tea-table – the look of pretty Jo lying on her sofa once again kept the boys from being over-greedy, and reduced Susy's excitement to due bounds.

Mrs. Aylmer said several times, "I'm the werry happiest woman in London," and her children seemed to think that they were the happiest children.

The pleasant tea-hour came, however, to an end at last, and Susy was just washing up the cups and saucers and putting the remainder of the feast into the cupboard, when the whole family were roused into a condition of most alert attention by a sharp and somewhat imperative knock on the room door.

"Dear heart alive!" exclaimed Mrs. Aylmer. "Whoever can that be? It sounds like the landlord, only I paid my bit of rent yesterday."

"It's more likely to be some one after you as laundress, mother," remarked practical Susy; and then Ben flew across the room and, opening the door wide, admitted no less a person than Sir John Ascot himself.

Mrs. Aylmer had never seen him, and of course did not know what an important visitor was now coming into her humble little room. Susy, however, knew Maggie's father, and felt herself turning very white, and took instant refuge behind Jo's sofa.

"Now, which is little Jo?" said Sir John, coming forward and peering round him. "I've come here specially to-day to see a child whom my own little girl loves very much. I've something to say to that child, and also to her mother. My name is Ascot, and I dare say you all, good folks, have heard of my dear little girl Maggie."

"Miss Maggie!" exclaimed Jo, a delicate pink coming into her face, and her sweet violet eyes becoming, not tearful, but misty. "Are you Miss Maggie's father, sir? I seems to be near to Miss Maggie somehow."

"So you are, little lassie," said the baronet; and then he glanced from pretty Jo to the other children, and from her again to her mother, as though he could not quite account for such a fragile and pure little flower among these plants of sturdy and common growth.

"My little Jo favors her father, Sir John," said Mrs. Aylmer, dropping a profound courtesy and dusting a chair with her apron for the baronet. "Will you be pleased to be seated, sir?" she went on. "We're all pleased to see you here – pleased and proud, and that's not saying a word too much. And how is the dear, beautiful little lady, Sir John, and Master Ralph, bless him?"

"My little girl is well again, thank God, Mrs. Aylmer, and Ralph is as sturdy a little chap as any heart could desire. Yes, I will take a seat near Jo, if you please. I've a little plan to propose, which I hope she will like, and which you, Mrs. Aylmer, will also approve of. This is it."

Then Sir John unfolded a deep-laid plot, which threw the Aylmer family into a state of unspeakable rapture. To describe their feelings would be beyond any ordinary pen.

CHAPTER XIII.

THANK GOD FOR ALL

On a certain lovely evening in the beginning of September, when the air was no longer too warm, and the whole world seemed bathed in absolute peace and rest, little Maggie Ascot and her Cousin Ralph might have been seen walking, with their arms round each other, in very deep consultation. Maggie was quite strong again, had got her roses back, and the bright light of health in her blue eyes. She and Ralph were pacing slowly up and down a shady path not far from the large entrance gates.

"I can't think what it means," exclaimed Maggie; "it is the fourth time Aunt Violet has gone up there to-day, and Susan the scullery-maid has gone with her now, carrying an enormous basket. Susan let me peep into it, and it was full of all kinds of goodies. She said it was for the new laundress. I never knew such a fuss to make about a laundress."

Here Ralph thought it well to administer a little reproof.

"That's because you haven't been taught to consider the poor," he said. "Why shouldn't a laundress have nice things done for her? and if this is a poor lonely stranger coming from a long way off, it's quite right for mother to welcome her. Mother always thinks you can't do too much for lonely people, and she'll wash your dresses all the whiter if she thinks you're going to be kind and attentive. Why, Maggie, our little Jo's mother is a laundress, you forget that. Laundresses are most respectable people."

At the mention of Jo's name Maggie sighed.

"There's nothing at all been done about her, Ralph," she said. "Nobody seems to take any notice when I speak about her. She must be tired of waiting and watching by this time. She must be dreadfully sorry that she did not go away to heaven and God; for she must know now that I never meant anything when I wanted to meet her in the country – and yet I did, Ralph, I did!"

Here Maggie's blue eyes grew full of tears.

"Never mind, Mag," replied her little cousin soothingly; "it is very odd, and I don't understand it a bit, but mother says things are sure to come right, and you know Uncle John wished us to trust him."

"But the time is going on," said Maggie; "the summer days will go, and Jo won't have seen the lovely country where the grass is green. Oh! Ralph, we must do something."

"If only Mrs. Aylmer were the new laundress!" began Ralph. "You can't think what a nice cottage that is, Mag – four lovely rooms, and such a nice, nice kitchen, with those dear little lattice panes of glass in the window, and lots of jasmine and Virginia creeper peeping in from outside, and a green field for the laundress to dry her clothes in, just beyond. Poor laundress! she will like that field awfully, and it would be very unkind of us to wish to take it away from her and give it to Mrs. Aylmer, for of course Mrs. Aylmer knows nothing about it, and the new laundress has probably arrived, and set her heart on it by this time; and she may be a widow, too, with lots and lots of little children."

"But none of the children could be like Jo," said Maggie.

"Well, perhaps not," answered Ralph. "Oh, here comes mother; let's run to meet her. Mother darling, has the new laundress come?"

"Yes, Ralph, she and her family arrived about an hour ago; they are settling down nicely into the cottage, and seem to be respectable people. They all think the cottage very comfortable."

"And are you going to see them again to-night, Auntie Violet?" asked Maggie with rather a sorrowful look on her little face.

"Why, yes, Maggie; they are all strangers here, you know, and I fancy they rather feel that, so it might be nice to walk up presently and take a cup of tea with them. There are some children, so you and Ralph might come too."

"Didn't I tell you how mother considered the poor?" here whispered Ralph, poking the little princess rather violently in the side. "Oh, yes, mother, we'd like to go to tea with the little laundresses. Is there anything we could take them – anything they would like, to show that we sympathize with them for having come so far, and having left their old home?"

"They don't seem at all melancholy, Ralph," said Mrs. Grenville, smiling, "and when they have seen you and Maggie, I fancy they will none of them have anything further to desire to-night. Why, Maggie dear, you look quite sad; what is the matter?"

"I am thinking of little Jo," whispered Maggie. "Her mother is a laundress, too, and she's poor. Why couldn't you have considered the poor in the shape of Jo's mother, Aunt Violet?"

Mrs. Grenville stooped down and kissed Maggie.

"Here come your father and mother," she said, "and I know they too want to see the new people who have come to the pretty cottage. Now let us all set off. I told the laundress and her family that you were coming to have tea with them, Maggie and Ralph. Suppose you two run on in front; you know the cottage and you know the way."

"Tell the good folks we'll look in on them presently," shouted Sir John Ascot, and then the children took each other's hands and ran across some fields to the laundress' cottage. They heard some sounds of mirth as they drew near, and saw two rather wild little boys tumbling about, turning somersaults and standing on their heads; they also heard a high-pitched voice, and caught a glimpse of a remarkably round and red face, and it seemed to Maggie that the voice and the face were both familiar, although she could not quite recall where she had seen them before.

"We must introduce ourselves quite politely," said Ralph as they walked up the narrow garden path. "Now here we are; I'll knock with my knuckles. I wish I knew the laundress' name. It seems rude to say, 'Is the laundress in?' for of course she has got a name, and her name is just as valuable to her as ours are to us. How stupid not to have found out what she is really called. Perhaps we had better inquire for Mrs. Robbins; that's rather a common name, and yet not too common. It would never do to call her Mrs. Smith or Jones, for if she wasn't Smith or Jones, she wouldn't like it. Now, Maggie, I'll knock rather sharp, and when the new laundress opens the door you are to say, 'Please is Mrs. Robbins the laundress in?'"

All this time the girl with the red face was making little darts to the lattice window and looking out, and there were some stifled sounds of mirth from the boys with the high-pitched voices.

"The laundress' family are in good spirits," remarked Ralph, and then he gave a sharp little knock, and Maggie prepared her speech.

"Please is the new – is Mrs. Rob – is, is – oh! Ralph, why, it's Mrs. Aylmer herself!"

Nothing very coherent after this discovery was uttered by any one for several minutes. Maggie found herself kneeling by Jo, with her arms round Jo's neck, and two little cheeks, both wet with tears, were pressed together, and two pair of lips kissed each other. That kiss was a solemn one, for the two little hearts were full.

In different ranks, belonging almost to two extremes, the child of riches and the child of poverty knew that they possessed kindred spirits, and that their friendship was such that circumstances were not likely again to divide them. Waters was right when she said there was a strong link between Maggie and Jo.

That is the story, an episode, after all, in the life of the little princess, but an episode which was to influence all her future days.

THE END

TOM, PEPPER, AND TRUSTY

"Therefore, to this dog will I,Tenderly, not scornfully,Render praise and favor:With my hand upon his headIs my benediction said,Therefore, and forever."– E. B. Browning.

CHAPTER I.

THE THREE FRIENDS

A child and a dog sat very close to the fast-expiring embers of a small fire in a shabby London attic.

The dog was very old, with palsied, shaking limbs, eyes half-blind, and an appearance about his whole person of almost disreputable ugliness and decrepitude, He was a large white-and-liver-colored dog, of no particular breed, and certainly of no particular beauty. Never, even in his best days, could this dog have been at all good-looking. The child who crouched close to him was small and thin. He was a pale child, with big, sorrowful eyes, and that shrunken appearance of the whole little frame which proclaims but too clearly that bread-and-milk have not sufficiently nourished it.

He sat very close to the old dog, half-supporting himself against him; his head was bent forward on his little chest – he was half-asleep.

A little apart from the dog and the sleepy child stood a very bright boy, a boy with rosy cheeks and sparkling eye. He poised himself for a moment on one leg, kicked off the snow from his ragged trousers with the other, then flinging his cap and an old broom into a corner of the attic, he sang out in a clear, ringing tone:

"Hillow! Pepper and Trusty, is that h'all the welcome yer 'ave to give to a feller?"

At the first sound of his voice the dog feebly wagged his tail and the little child started to his feet.

"Hillow!" he answered with a pitiful attempt at the elder boy's cheerfulness; "I 'opes as yer 'ave brought h'in some supper, Tom."

"See yere," said Tom, just turning back a morsel of his ragged jacket to show what really was still a pocket. This pocket bunched out now in a most suggestive manner, and Pepper, thrusting in his tiny hand, pulled from it the following heterogeneous mixture: an old bone – very bare of even the pretense of meat; an orange; some nuts; a piece of moldy bread, and a nice little crisp loaf; also twopence and a halfpenny.

"Ain't it prime, Pepper?" said the elder boy. "Yere's the bone for old Trusty, and the broken bread, and the pretty little loaf, and the nuts, and th' orange, for you and me."

"Oh, Tom! where did you get the nuts?"

"They were throwing 'em to a dancing monkey, and an old 'oman gave me a handful h'all to myself. I say, didn't I clutch 'em!"

"Well, let's crunch 'em up now," said Pepper, whose face had grown quite bright with anticipation.

"And give Trusty his bone," said Tom. "I picked it h'out o' the gutter, and washed it at the pump. 'Tis a real juicy bone – full o' marrow. Yere, old feller! Don't he move his lazy h'old sides quickly now, Pepper?"

"Yes," said Pepper, clapping his tiny hands.

CHAPTER II.

WHY HE WAS CALLED TRUSTY

The two little boys and the dog ate their supper in perfect silence, the only noise to be heard during the meal being the crunching of three sets of busy teeth. Then, the fire being quite out, the children lay down on a dirty mattress in a corner of the room, and Trusty curled himself up at their feet.

However lazy Trusty might be in the daytime while the fire was alight, at night he always assumed the character of a protector. Let the slightest sound arise, above, around, or beneath him, and he raised a bay, cracked it is true, but still full of unspeakable consolation to the timid heart of little Pepper.

In the daytime Pepper was often guilty of very wicked and treacherous thoughts about Trusty. When he was so often hungry, and could seldom enjoy more than half a meal, why must Tom, however little money or food he brought in after his day's sweeping, always insist on Trusty having his full share? Why must Tom – on those rare occasions when he was a little cross and discontented – too cross and discontented to take much notice of him (Pepper), yet still put his arms so lovingly round the old dog's neck? and why, why above all things must Trusty be so very selfish about their tiny fire, sitting so close to it, and taking all its warmth into his own person, while poor little Pepper shivered by his side?

Pepper was younger than Trusty, and he never remembered the day when the dog was not a great person in his home; he never remembered the day when his mother, however poor and pinched, had not managed, with all the good-will in the world, to pay the dog-tax for him.

And when that mother – six months ago – died, she had enjoined on Tom, almost with her last breath, the necessity of continuing this, and whatever straits they were placed in, begged of them never to forsake the old dog in his need.

Of course Pepper knew the reason of all this love and care for old Trusty; and the reason, notwithstanding those treacherous and discontented thoughts in which he now and then found himself indulging, filled him with not a little pride and pleasure. It was because of him – of him, poor little insignificant Pepper – that his mother and Tom loved Trusty so well. For when he was a baby Trusty had saved his life.

How Pepper did love to hear that story! How he used to climb on his mother's knee, and curl in her arms, and get her to tell it to him over and over again; and then, as he listened, his big, dark eyes used to get bright and wondering, while he pictured to himself the country home with the roses growing about the porch; and the pretty room inside, and the cradle where he lay warm and sheltered. Then, how his heart did beat when his mother spoke of that dreadful day when she went out and left him in charge of a neighbor's daughter, paying no heed to his real caretaker, the large strong dog – young then, who lay under the table.

How often his cheek had turned pale, as his mother went on to tell him how the neighbor's daughter first built up the fire, and then, growing tired of her dull occupation, went away and left him alone with no companion but the dog. And then, how his father, returning from his day's work, had rushed in with a cry of horror, to find the cradle burned and some of the other furniture on fire; but the baby himself lying, smiling and uninjured, in a corner of the room; for the brave dog had dragged him from his dangerous resting-place, and had himself put out the flames as they began to catch his little night-shirt. Trusty was severely burned, and for the rest of his days was blind of one eye and walked with a limp; but he earned the undying love and gratitude of the father and mother for his heroic conduct.

After this adventure his name was changed from Jack to Trusty, and any member of the family would rather have starved than allow Trusty to want. Pepper never listened to this exciting tale without his chest beginning to heave, and a moisture of love and compunction filling his brown eyes.

To-night, as he lay curled up as close as possible to Tom, with Trusty keeping his feet warm by lying on them, he thought of it all over again. As he thought, he felt even more than his usual sorrow, for he had certainly been very cross to Trusty to-day. These feelings and recollections so occupied him that he forgot to chatter away as usual, until, looking up suddenly, he felt that his brother's eyes were closing – in short, that Tom was going to sleep.

Now, of all the twenty-four hours that comprised Pepper's day and night, there was none that compared with the hour when he lay in his brother's arms, and talked to him, and listened to his adventures. This hour made the remaining twenty-three endurable; in short, it was his golden hour – his hour marked with a red letter.

"Oh, Tom!" he said now, rousing himself and speaking in a voice almost tearful, so keen was his disappointment, "yer never agoin' to get drowsy?"

"Not I," answered Tom, awakened at once by the sorrowful tones, and half-sitting up. "Wot is it, Pepper? I'm as lively as a lark, I am."

"Yer h'eyes were shut," said Pepper.

"Well, and your mouth wor shut, Pepper, that wor wy I fastened h'up my h'eyes, to save time."

"Tom," said Pepper, creeping very close to his big brother, "does yer really think as yer'll 'ave the money saved h'up for dear old Trusty's tax, wen the man comes fur it?"

"Oh, yes! I 'opes so; there's three months yet."

"'E's a dear old dog," said Pepper, in an emphatic voice, "and I won't mind wot Pat Finnahan says 'bout 'im."

"Wot's that?" asked Tom.

"Oh, Tom! 'e comes h'in, some days, wen 'tis bitter cold, and Trusty 'ave got hisself drawed in front o' the fire (Trusty do take h'up h'all the fire, Tom) and 'e says as Trusty is h'eatin' us h'out o' 'ouse and 'ome, and ef you pays the tax fur 'im, wy, yer'll be the biggest fool h'out."