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 :^^
 
 UNIVERSITY Ui- 
 
 ILLINOiS LIBRARY 
 
 TURBANA-CHAMPAIGN 
 
 B00KSTACK8
 
 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 F. W. ROBIXSOxV, 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 "grandmother's money," "no church,' 
 
 &c. &c. 
 
 m THREE VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, 
 
 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 
 
 1873. 
 
 The right of Translation i< reserved
 
 LONUO.N -. 
 
 PRINTED BY WACUONAIOJ A^D TDGWEIX, BLKNHKIM HOU6E, 
 
 BLENHEIM STREET. OXFORD STREET
 
 2^3 
 
 IN 
 
 V> FRIENDLY GREETING 
 
 
 
 TO 
 
 EDWARD CLARKE, ESQ. 
 
 BARRISTER- AT-LAW. 
 
 ^
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 OF 
 
 THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 
 
 
 
 A HARD STRUGGLE. 
 
 
 COAITER 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. 
 
 Preparing for a Surprise . 
 
 3 
 
 II. 
 
 I AM MORE Surprised than i Bargained for 
 
 10 
 
 III. 
 
 I Learn All the Xews 
 
 25 
 
 IV. 
 
 Herbert WESTiLvm . 
 
 
 38 
 
 V. 
 
 The Old Lodgings 
 
 
 
 53 
 
 VI. 
 
 In the Fog again 
 
 
 
 70 
 
 vn. 
 
 Mrs. Simmons has her Dislikes 
 
 
 
 77 
 
 vm. 
 
 Dick Simmons 
 
 
 
 91 
 
 IX. 
 
 At Holloway 
 
 
 
 104 
 
 X. 
 
 The Prisoner for Felony . 
 
 
 
 115 
 
 XI. 
 
 Struggling 
 
 
 
 131 
 
 XII. 
 
 The Hall of Harmons 
 
 
 
 154
 
 Vlll CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XIII. ^' Katie Baskerville'' . . . .163 
 
 XIV. Tommy Pounce 177 
 
 XV. A Sisters' Meeting .... 190 
 
 XVI. Katie's Home 206 
 
 BOOK II. 
 THE SISTERS. 
 
 I. Another Beginning 227 
 
 II. Three Letters 243 
 
 III. The Ride to Bushey Park . . . .261 
 
 IV. I enact the Champion .... 283
 
 BOOK I 
 
 A HARD STRUGGLE. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PREPARING FOR A SURPRISE. 
 
 T WONDER if I came back to England any 
 -■- richer than I went away. I had left it in 
 search of peace rather than of riches, and it was 
 with no hope of fortune-making that I had 
 turned my back upon home. I had left home to 
 make one less — that was all. There were fifteen 
 shillings and sixpence and a lock of Katie's hair 
 in my posession when I said good-bye ; there 
 were ten shillings and fourpence-halfpenny and 
 Kate's hair still to the good when I came back 
 again. 
 
 B 2 

 
 4 LITTLE KATE EIRBY. 
 
 Certainly I had grown no richer in a pecuni- 
 ary sense of the word, but I do not mean that 
 exactly. Riches I had not dreamed of when I 
 went away as uncle's housekeeper and compan- 
 ion, and general help at Pieterraaritzburg. My 
 uncle was a poor missionary, trying to turn 
 Zulus into zealots, and had never known in all 
 his working life how to scrape ten pounds 
 together that he could call his own. I was of 
 use to him a little, and I earned enough to keep 
 myself as teacher out there, and that was the 
 extent of my ambition ; but had I grown what 
 my uncle would have called "richer in grace?'' 
 — richer even in patience and in that art of 
 self-repression of which I understood so little in 
 my first start outwards? Heaven knows I I 
 do not beheve that I returned to London any 
 poorer, and I think that there was a trifle more 
 of that patience which I needed, and of that 
 courage which it is just possible I never lacked. 
 I came back four years older, perhaps four 
 years staider — at least I thought that I was 
 staider; but then what four calm, good years 
 thev had been in the Natal country, where
 
 PREPARIXG FOR A SURPRISE. O 
 
 there had been only the atmosphere to keep aiy 
 blood at fever-heat ! Sometimes I think that 
 those four years were the happiest of my life. 
 If I rebelled secretly against their sweet peace- 
 ful monotony, not knowing what was best for 
 me, I have repented of my youthful restless- 
 ness, and look back yearningly through tear- 
 dimmed eyes at the little African settlement, 
 and the gaunt old uncle whom everybody loved, 
 and whose home I left more lonely than 1 found 
 it — for he bad grown used to my ways^ and 
 was sorry to see the last of me. 
 
 We had had much conversation about it, and 
 it was his wash, too, that I should go. He con- 
 sidered not only that it was best for me, but 
 that it was my duty to follow in every respect 
 the paternal commands, that I should once 
 more take my place by my father's side and 
 little Kate's. And in my heart I was ungrate- 
 ful, and glad to leave Uncle Jef. He saw it, 
 but he did not reprove me, or seem hurt. It 
 was my natural craving for home ; those whom 
 I loved the best, and who, I hoped, loved m.e 
 the best, were all in England.
 
 b LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 That is why I left Pietermaritzburg and came 
 to London, wondering if I were any richer than 
 when I went away — wondering, too, whether 
 they would see an improvement in me, and 
 what improvement I should find in them, after 
 fom- years of separation. I did not know where 
 father and Katie were living ; my father in his 
 last note had not supplied the information. His 
 letter had been vague and wandering, as if a 
 sudden chance of riches had bewildered him ex- 
 ceedingly. After telling me all about Kate, 
 which Kate, in her school-girl's hand, had told 
 me for herself, he said : — 
 
 " I don't know where I shall be when this 
 letter reaches you, dear Faith, or what home I 
 shall possess in which to welcome your return. 
 It will certainly be a bigger and braver home 
 than you anticipate, judging from that dark lit- 
 tle den in Dorset Street, Blackfriars, where you 
 would not stop any longer — and quite right 
 too. I shall be easy to find, child ; from nine 
 a.m. to six p.m., I shall be at my post as prin- 
 cipal cashier to the firm of Westmair and Son, 
 Watling Street, City. All the facts when we
 
 PREPARING FOR A SURPRISE. 7 
 
 meet: not now. Pray come at once; come 
 straight to Westmair's, where you used to bring 
 my dinner when I was only a poor book-keep- 
 er on an indifferent salary, and we will go forth 
 to the new home together. I shall enjoy your 
 astonishment at all that has changed my life 
 since your absence. I shall have arranged 
 everything ; the coup de theatre will be complete 
 by your arrival. Yon know, Faith, how fond 1 
 have always been of surprises, and this will in- 
 deed be a great surprise to you. Co:me at 
 ONCE." 
 
 Then followed a postscript, more bewildering 
 than his letter. 
 
 *' P.S. — Don't imagine that my lift at West- 
 mair's has anything to do with all that I have 
 said. It is not that. I ought to have had the 
 cashier's berth long ago — you are aware how 
 I have been served by these people, for whom 
 my father wasted his life before me. Katie's 
 love. I have given her strict injunctions not 
 to mention business in any way, but the mail will 
 probably bring you a letter from herself." 
 
 Of course it brought a letter, that was as full
 
 8 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 of mysterious hints as my father's had been, de- 
 spite my father's injunctions ; and it spoke of 
 new life, and a big fortune, and begged me also 
 to return immediately. Neither in my father's 
 letter nor in Kate's had there been a thought 
 for Uncle Jefs feelings, or how Uncle Jef 
 would bear the idea of parting with me. In the 
 excitement of my father's and Katie's childish 
 exultation, JefFery Kirby had been completely 
 overlooked. He was a little grave for a time, 
 but he did not in any way comment upon the 
 neglect. 
 
 " Is it a dream ?" I asked. 
 
 " If your father had not always been one of 
 the most despondent men on the face of the 
 earth, I should have been inclined to think so, 
 Faith," my uncle replied. 
 
 "What shall I do?" 
 
 " Go, if my brother wishes it," was the an- 
 swer. " I have no doubt it is for the best." 
 
 So I collected my savings together ; there 
 was not quite enough to pay my passage back, 
 but uncle found a sovereign to lend me, and 
 away I sailed one morning to take my share
 
 PREPARIXG FOR A SURPRISE. 9 
 
 of the fortune that had come late in life to the 
 Kirbys. I was sixteen when I left London for 
 NataL I had just passed my twentieth birth- 
 day when, one October afternoon, the steam-tug 
 Ariadne towed the fast-sailing ship The Clipper 
 up the river Thames towards the docks, whence 
 I had started four years since on my apprentice- 
 ship to life. Having served out that apprentice- 
 ship, or my uncle having cancelled my inden- 
 tures, here I was back again like a bad shilling. 
 And here began my life in earnest.
 
 10 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 I AM MORE SURPRISED THAN I BARGAINED FOR. 
 
 Tl^ATLING STREET is not the pleasantest 
 ^ ' of thoroughfares when the fog is thick in 
 town, and the hour is close on sunset. It was 
 five o'clock by St. Paul's Cathedral, and the fog 
 was thick enough to eat, when I was once more 
 in the old, narrow, grimy City street which runs 
 parallel w4th bustling Cheapside. Tt was not a 
 fine day to return to the old life, and to feel as I 
 went on slowly in the street's shadow, and in the 
 thick mist of that dying afternoon, that here at 
 least there had been no outward change. They 
 might have been only four hours since I was 
 last in London — indeed, there w^as no difference, 
 save in the fog abroad that day, from the time
 
 I AM MORE SURPRISED THAN I BARGAINED FOR. 11 
 
 when I was a little child, and carried father's 
 dinner to the office, as he had reminded me in 
 the last letter that he had written. He had 
 been book-keeper then, taken on in charity when 
 his own business had failed — purely out of 
 charity, and with no consideration for the family 
 services, my father had said somewhat ungrate- 
 fully. I could almost imagine that I, a long- 
 limbed bony girl of ten years of age, was once 
 more stalking to the office with my basket of 
 provisions for father, who liked his dinner sent 
 him punctually, and sent hot and well cooked 
 — two desiderata which, he affirmed, no eating- 
 house in the neighbourhood had been ever 
 able to accomplish. But mother was living then, 
 and he had believed that no one could do any- 
 thing so well as mother. 
 
 Yes, no difference in Watling Street. The 
 houses were as gaunt and dull as ever, and only 
 the lights were flickering in the windows of the 
 warehouses a little while before their time. 
 There were not many people about in the fog ; 
 the street was very quiet ; a few people ran 
 against me, and begged my pardon, as they or
 
 12 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 I slipped from the greasy pavement into the 
 roadway. I could hear coughs of various de- 
 grees of bassness echoing from dusky interiors ; 
 there was a steam on all the windows, as if the 
 clerks had had their hot dinners brought them, 
 and had taken off the covers simultaneously ; 
 there were shadows of humanity darting to and 
 fro from the streets that opened right and left, 
 and led to busier thoroughfares ; there were two 
 waggons blocking up the street, and their drivers 
 arguing with each other as to right of precedence ; 
 and there was a dog which had lost itself, and 
 w^as sniffing in and out of every open doorway. 
 
 Odd enough it was that I should have passed 
 Westmair's office and gone on as far as Queen 
 Street, for I knew the place thoroughly, and it 
 had not changed much. It might have been 
 the fog that led me astray — it was more likely 
 to have been the crowd of old fancies and old 
 hopes which came to me again, and led me too 
 far over the stones that I knew almost by 
 heart. 
 
 " How foolish of me !" I soliloquised, and then 
 I walked back to the office on the ground floor.
 
 I AM MORE SURPRISED THAN I BARGAINED FOR. 13 
 
 and read the name of Westraair and Son on the 
 left hand side of the door-post, and looked in 
 upon a wilderness of packages, and tin cans on 
 narrow shelves, with one jet of gas burning in 
 the shop bj way of protest against the general 
 raurkiness of atmosphere, and not with any idea 
 of illuminating the interior of the premises. 
 They had never cared for much light in West- 
 mair's office — chance customers were rare, and 
 the office-keeper had little to do with people 
 who came in from the street. Westmair's was 
 all connection, correspondence, and commercial 
 travellers' business. Looking at Westmair's 
 from Watling Street, was to set down the great 
 house as not worth its salt. Strangers making 
 a short cut to the Mansion House, or whose 
 offices were in broader thoroughfares, might 
 have passed Westmair's all their lives without 
 knowing it ; it was a strip of a house even 
 where houses ran in strips as a rule. This was 
 only Westmair's London office — a place which 
 was handy for the London folk, but not impera- 
 tive for the Westmairs to possess — a crotchet of 
 the firm, that had always had faith in City
 
 14 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 offices for anything. Westmairs' proper was ten 
 miles from London, and the Westmair's oils and 
 the Westmair's polish, which had made the for- 
 tune of the family, were kept and mixed in large 
 quantities miles away from the shadow of St. 
 Paul's. This was only a house of samples and 
 orders, and general correspondence. 
 
 I turned the handle of the half-glass door — 
 had the glass been cleaned since I was there 
 last? — and passed into the stuffy shop. All 
 was very misty, scarcely to be accounted for by 
 the fog which had come in with me from the 
 street. Perhaps there were tears in my eyes at 
 the prospect of meeting my father after four 
 long years — at the thought of beginning life 
 again with him from that very moment, as it 
 were. I went cautiously towards the counting- 
 house at the end of the shop ; it went up three 
 or four steps, and was shut from public gaze, 
 when there was any representative of the public 
 to gaze at it, by a second glass front, behind 
 which was a wire blind, behind which was a 
 lamp burning brightly, behind w^hich was some 
 one, with his back towards me, writing at a
 
 I AM MORE SURPRISED THAN I BARGAINED FOR. 15 
 
 desk. My father in his new post of principal 
 cashier, indubitably ! 
 
 When I was in London last, he had sat at a 
 little desk below this window, with a gas jet 
 above his premature greyness, and had blown 
 verbal communications through a gutta-percha 
 pipe into the office above him ; but times had 
 changed, and now there was a little bald man 
 with a bent back to blow at my father instead. 
 I had not seen this last-named personage, and 
 was proceeding boldly to the inner sanctum, 
 when he piped out, " What's your business, 
 young ladyf and focussed me with two horn- 
 rimmed spectacles. This old gentleman was 
 the new clerk — the office and book-keeper. I 
 knew all about him at once. My father's 
 rise had left a vacancy in the post w^hich my 
 grandfather had been the first of our family to 
 fill; there had been no more Kirbys to the good, 
 ^ and hence an advertisement, and this worn-out, 
 broken-down man at eighty pounds a year I 
 AVestmair's never gave more than eighty pounds 
 a year for their office-keeper — they called this 
 little, dusky, ill-smelling shop an office ! — and
 
 16 LITTLE KATE KIRBT. 
 
 possibly the situation was not worth more, for 
 there had been hundreds always ready to jump 
 at it. There had never seemed a great deal to 
 do for the money — I had often caught my father 
 dozing over the books, although it was his fixed 
 idea that Westmair's worked him like a horse, 
 and I believe this old man had been asleep 
 before I had intruded on the premises. 
 
 He was alive to business very quickly — 
 juniors in office are frequently the most ener- 
 getic of the staff. 
 
 " What's your business, young lady ?" 
 
 " Oh, if you please, don't speak so loudly," I 
 said, gesticulating towards the counting-house ; 
 " 1 want to surprise him." 
 
 The office-keeper looked from me to the 
 window over his head, and then back from the 
 window to me, and glared. It was full a minute 
 ' and a half before the idea seized him, and then 
 he grinned from ear to ear, and turned me a 
 little qualmish with three yellow tusks and a 
 furry tongue, of which he made the most. 
 
 " Oh, you know Mr. " 
 
 "Of course I know him. I have come thou-
 
 I AM MORE SURPRISED THAX I BARGAINED FOR. 17 
 
 sands of miles to see him, all the way from the 
 Cape of Good Hope I" 
 
 The book-keeper, or office-keeper, looked 
 somewhat amazed at this avowal, for he shut 
 his mouth and glared at me again through his 
 ugly spectacles. 
 
 " You can go up, then," he said, dipping his 
 pen into the ink and flourishing it towards the 
 counting-house, "if he expects you. Does he 
 expect you ?" 
 
 " To be sure he does." 
 
 *'I shouldn't have thought it of him," he 
 muttered ; " in business hours, too — well !" 
 
 I did not stay to explain more fully my con- 
 duct to one who had evidently set me down for 
 a very forward young woman. 1 was in a hurry 
 to embrace my dear dad, and to hear him 
 murmur forth, "My darling Faith — I am so 
 glad that you have come back !" He would be 
 glad of that, I was very sure. Man of many 
 faults as he was, peevish, discontented, and ec- 
 centric, I had always thought that he had loved 
 his girls in his way. My woollen dress did not 
 betray me by any rustling, as I ascended the 
 
 VOL. I. C
 
 18 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 steps, OD the top of which my heart began beat- 
 ing nervously — I hardly knew for what reason. 
 The dialogue beneath the counting-house window 
 had not disturbed the studies of the cashier, who 
 was very much bent over his desk, as I pushed 
 open the door and stole in. It was a small 
 counting-house, with an iron safe on one side of 
 the room, that looked respectable and solid. 
 How quickly the Westmairs made money in a 
 quiet way, was evident by that big safe, and by 
 the cheques w^iich had come by the last post, 
 and which the cashier was examining and en- 
 dorsing before locking up for the night, now 
 that banking hours were over. I laid my hands 
 upon his shoulders, and said — 
 
 " I have come back, dear, as you asked me — 
 back for good ! Don't be very much aft-aid, or 
 very much scared, but take time to think that I 
 am here, your little Faith !" 
 
 All this was said in a low whisper, for I knew 
 that my father was nervous, and I wished to 
 surprise him, not to frighten him. But before it 
 was all said, or almost before — for I have a faint 
 recollection of going on with a few more words.
 
 I AM MORE SURPRISED THAN I BARGAINED FOR. 19 
 
 even after my discovery — I had become aware 
 that my hands were not resting on my father's 
 shoulders, which were round shoulders, and 
 weak, and would have given way more, and 
 that in lieu of the scanty grey-flecked hairs of 
 Mr. Kirby, there was rising up before me a 
 curlier, darker, and more vigorous head of hair. 
 "Oh, my !" I gasped forth, and then a sun- 
 burnt face turned round as my hands dropped 
 to my side, and my tongue stuck to the roof 
 of my mouth. He was a young man of some 
 four or five-and-twenty years of age before whom 
 I was standing — a principal probably, a West- 
 mair, or a somebody of importance who had 
 taken ray father's post for a day or two. He 
 was inclined to laugh at me and my embarrass- 
 ment. I saw the curves of his mouth trying 
 hard to keep themselves down, and a pair 
 of big brown eyes seemed laughing already. I 
 was ashamed of myself, and I grew hot and in- 
 dignant and "fussy," and thought that he might 
 have shown more consideration for one who had 
 made so egregious a blunder. He rose from his 
 chair at last, 
 
 'c2
 
 20 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," he said, seeing how 
 grave I had become, "but I think this is the 
 wrong office. You — you'll find it higher up the 
 street, perhaps." 
 
 He was a trifle confused himself now, and 
 gave an odd and impulsive scratch to his head, 
 forcible but inelegant. 
 
 *' No, it is not the wrong office ; I have been 
 very foolish ; pray forgive my rudeness, sir, but 
 I only expected to find one person here — not 
 you, certainly," I stammered forth. 
 
 " You have got into the wrong place, I think," 
 was his reply, " unless — oh, dear ! — whose place 
 do you want, may I inquire V^ 
 
 **Mr. Westmair's." 
 
 - Oh !" 
 
 He ran his fingers through his hair again — 
 taking two hands this time, and becoming 
 thereby much fiercer in aspect — and then turned 
 suddenly so pale that I thought he must be a 
 very delicate young man. 
 
 " You are Mr. Westmair, I presume ? " I 
 said. 
 
 " My name is Westmair, certainly — not one of
 
 I AM MORE SURPRISED THAN I BARGAIXED FOR. ?1 
 
 the Westmairs, but an oftshot — a family connec- 
 tion — a hanger-on — a — I hope you follow me — 
 I hope you are — that is, that you are not — may 
 I take the liberty of inquiring what is your 
 name ?" he asked with sudden energy and de- 
 cision. 
 
 " My name is Kirby ." 
 
 *' Oh— I see !" 
 
 He sat down in the chair which he had half 
 pushed towards me a few minutes since, and 
 which I had not occupied, and dashed at his 
 cheques and papers Tsdth extraordinary interest, 
 turning his back upon me and ignoring my 
 presence altogether. It was very strange and 
 startling, and I was beginning to think that all 
 might not be well — that all might be very ill 
 for me — as some of the papers fluttered to the 
 floor without the gentleman taking heed of 
 them. He had been surprised, he was now con- 
 fused. 
 
 " My name is Kirby," I explained more fully, 
 " and I have called at my father's request. It 
 was his ^-ish that I should come direct to the 
 office."
 
 22 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 " Oh — indeed — confouDd it ! — was it though ?" 
 
 " Something has happened! — he has left here?" 
 
 *' Yes — he has left," said Mr. Westmair, slow- 
 ly ; " I'll tell you in a minute — you don't know 
 anything, then?" 
 
 '' Not anything — save that he was fortunate 
 in life when he wrote to me." 
 
 "When was that?" 
 
 " Some months ago, he wrote to me at Pieter- 
 maritzburg. Oh, sir, he has not met with an 
 accident — he is not dead ? You would not 
 keep me in this suspense if he were dead, I am 
 sure I 
 
 "No, no — he is not dead, I am sorry to say — 
 I mean I am glad to say. Pray sit down — pray 
 compose yourself, I will tell you everything in 
 a minute." 
 
 He had forgotten that he was occupying the 
 only chair in the room, and that I was leaning 
 for support against a w'ainscot partition, yearn- 
 ing for the news, the bad news, which I knew 
 now was on its way tow^ards me. What could 
 have happened since my father's stroke of good 
 luck to have so wholly changed the scene? Was
 
 I AM MORE SURPRISED THAN I BARGAINED FOR. 23 
 
 he really mad when he wrote last, and was his 
 fortune only a dream ? 
 
 " I — I hope that I have been patient, sir — but 
 I — I am very anxious," I hinted at last. 
 
 He looked round quickly, then rose, snatched 
 up his hat, and walked sharply from the count- 
 ing-house, down the steps into the office, and 
 towards the street. 
 
 Was he going, to fetch my father, or what ? 
 I peered through the window above the wire 
 blind as he went striding along the shop. The 
 street-door was opened before he had reached 
 it, and a tall, swarthy man entered and regard- 
 ed the cashier with amazement. 
 
 " What's the matter ?" 
 
 *' Nothing. That is, only Kirby's daughter 
 from the Cape ; she is in the couting-house." 
 
 " Well — you have told her, I suppose ?" 
 
 "No, I haven't — I couldn't; upon my soul, I 
 couldn't — 1 must leave it to you." 
 
 *' Why, this is cowardice." 
 
 ** Very likely ; I am naturally a cow^ard. Tell 
 her as gently as you can ; she seems a very nice 
 girl, poor thing."
 
 24 LITTLE KATE KIRBY 
 
 But- 
 
 *' But I'm hanged if I do all the dirty work in 
 this place ; it does not suit me ; and 1 can't tell 
 that girl, who came in just now, all life and 
 hope, the truth about her father. Tell her your- 
 self, Abel." 
 
 The swarthy man seemed more astonished by 
 the excitable behaviour of his cashier than by 
 the news of my presence in his office. He went 
 to the door and looked out in the fog after his 
 refractory subordinate, then with slow, precise 
 steps, he came towards me and my sinking 
 heart. I wished that the other man had stopped 
 to tell me all the truth, though he had taken 
 longer time about it. I did not like this hard- 
 lined face, which seemed advancing towards me 
 like a fate beyond my power to resist.
 
 25 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 I LEARN ALL THE NEWS. 
 
 THE gentleman who entered the counting- 
 house, and took the place of his eccentric 
 cashier, was a man of thirty years of age, w^ho 
 might have told the world that he was forty- 
 five, without surprising it in the least. He was a 
 tall, stiff-backed man, with one of the saddest 
 countenances I had ever seen ; stern it was as 
 well as sad, in many respects, but it was not so 
 wholly inflexible as I had fancied from my first 
 look at it. He was very dark, with black eyes 
 that seemed cold and unsympathetic, and unlike 
 black eyes in general, and his close-shaven 
 cheeks and chin did not give him one day's 
 younger aspect. If he had shorn himself of all
 
 26 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 hirsute decoration for that purpose, it had been 
 a mistake in art, and had only given him a 
 grim Don Quixote-looking head that was not 
 pleasant to confront. He entered slowly, and 
 after regarding me attentively for an instant, 
 bowed, and pushed the chair more towards 
 me. 
 
 " You are Miss Kirby," he said. " Sit down, 
 please ; you had better sit down, I think." 
 
 I sat down, thus adjured. I was in no hurry 
 for the news now. I knew that it would be bad 
 enough, and there came over me the wish, 
 strangely at variance with my late impatience, 
 to delay the revelation which this man, in his 
 cold hard tones, would give me, as the hammer 
 of a bell might strike out its time of day. 
 
 " My name is Westmair — Abel Westmair, of 
 the firm of Westmair and Son. I am the son," 
 he added, as if by some mischance I should take 
 him for his father. 
 
 I bowed, but I could not speak to him. I was 
 not awed by the greatness of his position, but 
 by the consciousness of the terrible nature of his 
 forthcoming revelation.
 
 I LEARX ALL THE XEWS. 27 
 
 '* You are Miss Faith Kirbj, I presume, to 
 whoui I wrote a few weeks since, suggesting 
 that you should remain in Pietermaritzbm-g, 
 and not come to London as your father had pre- 
 viously desired," he continued. " It was his wish 
 too, I believe, that you should stay ; but I was 
 following out my own ideas, certainly not his." 
 
 *' Is he dead, then ? Oh, he is dead I" I cried 
 very quickly now. 
 
 " Pardon me, but he is not dead. He How 
 
 careless!" and Mr. Westmair, junior, stooped 
 under the table, picked up several cheques and 
 papers, and looked over them as he continued, 
 " he is not dead, but in trouble." 
 
 His black eyes were fixed upon me over the 
 edge of the papers, and he was watching the 
 eflfect with great attention. Was he breaking 
 the news to me kindly or not ? It was impos- 
 sible to guess from his stolid countenance. 
 
 " In trouble," I repeated mechanically. 
 
 Mr.gWestmair restored the cheques to their 
 place, from which his cashier had swept them in 
 his hurry to depart, leaned against the table, 
 crossed his legs, clasped his thin hands toge-
 
 28 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 ther, and once more looked at me with fixed 
 intentness. 
 
 " In trouble by his own acts — and by his own 
 weakness, and consequently there is no one to 
 blame but himself for all the misery that he has 
 brought about." 
 
 *' Poor father ! Is he very ill — in very great 
 trouble f ' 
 
 " I don't see that he deserves any pity from 
 you — any more," he added, after a moment's 
 pause — " than he deserves it from me." 
 
 " Go on, sir." 
 
 Mr. Westmair, having as he thought suffi- 
 ciently prepared me, or having grown tired of 
 his circumlocutory process of information, or 
 having attended so far as he considered 
 necessary to the injunctions of the young man 
 who had beaten an unceremonious retreat, de- 
 livered the rest of his communication at one 
 shot. 
 
 " Your father is in prison." 
 There was a sudden singing in my ears, an 
 upheaving of the floor towards the ceiling, a 
 merry-go-round of the iron safe, the counting-
 
 I LEARX ALL THE NEWS. 29 
 
 house window, and Abel Westmair, and then the 
 mist was very dense and thick about me, as if 
 a grand rush of the fog in Watling Street had 
 streamed into the office, to hide me with my 
 grief and shame from him who had told me all 
 the news. 
 
 I was quite certain that I had fainted and 
 made a scene, some minutes afterwards. I 
 hated scenes, and to have given way like this, 
 and before this man. was humiliating to reflect 
 upon, when the strength for reflection returned 
 to me. I had always fancied that I was inclined 
 to be firm, but this weakness convinced me that 
 I was only a silly girl after all, unable to bear 
 up against trouble. Should I ever bear up 
 against real trouble again — such real, down- 
 right trouble as this was ? 
 
 " I shall be better in a minute," I said, though 
 my lips trembled very much, and I am sure were 
 as white as paper ; " it's — it's the long journey. 
 I have been some time on board shijD, and — and 
 the journey was a fatiguing one."
 
 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 " It's a considerable distance from the Cape to 
 London," Mr. Westmaii* observed. 
 
 He had been bending over me along with his 
 book-keeper, whom he had evidently called to 
 my assistance. The cheques were all over the 
 floor again, and at some stage or other of my 
 convalescence I had knocked a water-bottle and 
 glass from his hand, the contents of which were 
 over the cheques. 
 
 *'Do you feel any better now ?" he inquired, 
 after I had dreamily regarded him for a minute 
 or two. 
 
 " I don't know ; I — I think I do. I suppose 
 that I fainted away f 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Because — you told me that my father — 
 Hadn't this gentleman better go now ? I am 
 much obliged to him, but " 
 
 *' You can go, Simpson," said Mr. Westmair. 
 " Not that it matters," he added, after Simpson 
 had retired, "for he knows the whole story, 
 which he could have- told you much better than 
 I. I am not used to this kind of thing." 
 
 He said it in an aggrieved tone of voice, as
 
 I LEARX ALL THE XEWS. 31 
 
 if he had been imposed upon very much that 
 afternoon. He stooped, picked up his cheques, 
 regarded their damp condition ruefully, and 
 finally directed his attention to myself again. 
 
 " Will you not put your bonnet on ?" he said ; 
 and I became conscious that that article of 
 attire had been removed, and that my hair was 
 rough and tumbled. I made myself as tidy as 
 possible, and as my agitation would allow, 
 keeping my eyes upon him, feehngthat I should 
 flinch no more, and be uncomfortable never 
 again beneath his microscopic stare. 
 
 "My father in prison !" I said ; " in prison for 
 what?" 
 
 " For robbing us." 
 
 " My father turn robber — oh, I don't believe 
 that I My father was honour itself, with all his 
 faults, and do you tell me — do you dare to tell 
 me that he is a thief?" 
 
 " I would certainly refrain from exciting my- 
 self in this way," said Abel Westmair, coldly ; 
 " it unnerves you." 
 
 " Tell me all that you know — or, rather, all 
 that you believe against him."
 
 32 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 I daresay that I was -unpleasantly peremp- 
 tory in ray tone, but I was so beset with the 
 conviction that my father had been the victim 
 of a cruel plot, that I did not study the feelings, 
 if he had any, of my companion. 
 
 Mr. Westmair complied with my request. I 
 was seated in the chair again, and he was lean- 
 ing against the table in his old position. He 
 spoke clearly and precisely, but betrayed no 
 emotion at the story, or any further concern for 
 my feelings. He was one of the great West- 
 mairs, and I was one of the Kirbys — for two 
 generations the Kirbys had been the servants 
 of these people. 
 
 '* Your father was a clever book-keeper, and 
 an ingenious man at figures. When we made 
 him cashier, and when a great deal of money 
 passed through his hands, he turned his talents 
 to a bad account, and robbed us systematically. 
 We discovered it, and prosecuted him, as we 
 should prosecute on principle anyone guilty of 
 a breach of trust in this establishment. He 
 pleaded guilty, and " 
 
 " He pleaded guilty !" I cried.
 
 I LEARX ALL THE XEWS. dry 
 
 " Yes — the facts were too clear for any at- 
 tempt at refutation — and he was sentenced to 
 two years' imprisonment." 
 
 " Where is he now?" 
 
 " In Hollo way Prison." 
 
 " God help him ! — he was not guilty, I am 
 sure he was not guilty, Mr. Westmair." 
 
 Mr. Westmair's face shadowed more at my 
 persistence. 
 
 " That is a reflection on my word — on the 
 honour of the house. Miss Kirby," he said, slow- 
 ly ; " but you are suffering from a natural 
 excitement. AVhat do you think of doing? 
 You have some money, I suppose, and friends 
 in London, and — so on ? Shall Simpson fetch 
 a cab?" 
 
 " No, sir, I can walk," said I, rising at this 
 hint — " do not trouble yourself about me in any 
 way. Of what sum were you robbed ?" 
 
 " Eight hundred pounds." 
 
 " And when was my father tried for the 
 robbery ?" 
 
 " The fifteenth of last September."- 
 
 " I — I must get a newspaper, or something, 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 and understand it for myself. I can't under- 
 stand you," I added, abruptly, " and I do not 
 want." 
 
 " Just as Miss Kirby pleases," he said, more 
 coldly still. 
 
 " You never took his part, or thought that 
 he might have been innocent ; you believed 
 every fact against an old servant at once. And 
 yet his father before him had been in the firm." 
 
 " There was a Kirby here before your father," 
 said Abel Westmair, " but we were not called 
 upon to regard the matter from a sentimental 
 or a dramatic point of view. We were robbed, 
 and we found out the thief, that is all. If he 
 had been our dearest and nearest friend, it 
 would have been still our duty to repay a base 
 act of ingratitude with the law's justice and 
 might. There was no malice in the matter, 
 and, so far as regards yourself, young lady, I, 
 speaking for the firm, will add that we are sorry." 
 
 He said it with some dignity, perhaps with as 
 much kindness as it was in his nature to evince, 
 but I saw in him only a hard master who had 
 had no mercy on my father. I hated the man ;
 
 I LEARN .VLL THE NEWS. 35 
 
 I could have cursed him in my desolation, and 
 for all the forced calmness which I had at last 
 assumed. I hated him ; but I was too proud 
 to show that he or his words had any power to 
 move me, and as my reiteration of a belief in 
 my fathers innocence appeared to vex him 
 slightly, I expressed again my firm con\^ction 
 that my father had been w-ronged. 
 
 He did not defend himself, or offer any farther 
 explanation; he regarded me with his old 
 aggravating stolidity, and, as I moved towards 
 the door, he opened it for me, standing thereat 
 Hke a statue. 
 
 I was going out into the world, not knowing 
 which way to turn, wholly uncertain concerning 
 my next step, more bewildered by the strange- 
 ness of my position than I could have been 
 aware at the moment, when I remembered that 
 an all-important question had not been asked 
 yet. 
 
 " And Where's httle Kate?" 
 
 The question leaped from me with spasmodic 
 force, and he elevated his eyebrows and stared 
 at me harder than ever. 
 
 d2
 
 36 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 " Where's who ?" he said. 
 
 " Little Kate— my sister ?" 
 
 " I didn't know that you had a sister. Really 
 I have been quite in the dark as to your family 
 connections." 
 
 " And my father never spoke of her to you ?" 
 
 " Not a word — why should he f 
 
 " Great Heaven ! that child is alone in the 
 world then. And she is only seventeen ! Where 
 can she be ?" 
 
 I went out of the counting-house, pondering 
 on this mystery, on the impossibility of my 
 finding her in the dark City of London, where- 
 in I was myself submerged. 
 
 I went out of Westmair and Son's with a 
 heart that I thought was broken. My own 
 position was precarious, but I had not time to 
 think of it. Where was the child I had loved 
 so much, and to whom I had been more like a 
 mother than a sister after the real mother had 
 died? She had been a wild, excitable, pretty 
 girl, wayward, vain, fragile ; she had been my 
 chief anxiety in going away ; what was she now 
 in my coming back again ? There were troubles
 
 I LEARN ALL THE XEWS. 37 
 
 aud cares on all sides of me, as I crept out of 
 the office of the Westmairs into the fog, which 
 had become very thick and black with the 
 night. All seemed as impenetrable as my own 
 life ahead, and there was no seeing a step be- 
 fore me. 
 
 I was beginning life again — life for myself, 
 without a single friend to counsel me — and I 
 had ten shillings and fourpence-halfpenny to 
 begin it with !
 
 38 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 HERBERT WESTMAIR. 
 
 1T7ITH a heart heavy-laden, I was proceeding 
 ' ' down Watling Street towards St. PauFs 
 Churchyard, when some one touched me on the 
 shoulder. Through the mist I recognised the 
 cashier whom I had surprised at his desk a short 
 while since. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, Miss Kirby, for troubling 
 you again, but has he told you ?" 
 
 " Yes, he has told me all." 
 
 " Not unkindly, I hope ? It's only my young 
 uncle's way which is harsh and disagreeable," 
 he explained, " for Abel is really not much more 
 disagreeable than other people." 
 
 " I did not expect, or wish for, any kindness
 
 HERBERT WESTMAIR. 39 
 
 from Mr. Westmair," I said, proudly — how hard 
 I did try to .be very proud with it all I — " He 
 told me that he had put my father into prison, 
 and I could not thank him for the information." 
 
 "I was afraid the news would almost be the 
 death of you, Miss Kirby ; I had not the cour- 
 age to tell you myself." 
 
 " You are not a brave man, I perceive." 
 
 " I was not strong-minded enough for the 
 task," he replied, " for you had come in full of 
 hope, and I should have distressed you more by 
 my explanation than Abel has done. I am a 
 blunderer, upon my word. I can't do anything 
 well, and my uncle has always his wits about 
 him. I am about the worst fellow in the world 
 to tell any other fellow bad news." 
 
 " Did you know my father ?" I inquired. 
 
 " I was in the office a few weeks before he — 
 before he met with his misfortunes." 
 
 " And you believe him to be guilty of this 
 robbery ?" 
 
 He stared hard at me for an instant, then he 
 said, 
 
 " I am sorry to say, there is no doubt of
 
 40 LITTLE KATE EJRBY. 
 
 that. I think that he was led away, tempted, 
 deluded, or something — at least, that was his 
 excuse, when he begged Abel to forgive him." 
 
 " And Mr. Abel Westmair conld not see any 
 reason for pardoning an old servant," I said, 
 sharply — I could only regard the matter from 
 the Kirby point of view — " even supposing that 
 my father had robbed the firm ?" 
 
 " Supposing ! Ah, yes." 
 
 " I do not set my father down as a robber, 
 because you and your uncle tell me that he is," 
 I cried. " You two I know nothing about, my 
 father's character and principles I have known 
 all my life. Good evening." 
 
 Mr. Westmair, taken aback by my sharpness, 
 stopped to consider the position, recovered him- 
 self, appeared at my side again, and kept step 
 with me, with a persistency that was annoying, 
 despite the kindness which I believe was at the 
 bottom of his attention. 
 
 " One moment," he said ; " but what shall you 
 do now? Where are you going? Who are 
 the friends to whom you can turn in this emer- 
 gency ?"
 
 HERBERT WESTMAIR. 41 
 
 " You appear to think that I am quite alone 
 in the world," I replied. " What do you know 
 of me, or of my position ?" 
 
 " Well, I know more than you think." 
 
 " From whom ?" 
 
 " From your father, who was afraid of your 
 return." 
 
 " Tell me what he said," I asked, eagerly ; 
 " did he speak of Katie ? ' 
 
 " Katie?" he answered—" who's that ?" 
 
 " My sister." 
 
 " I was not aware that you had a sister," he 
 replied. " How singular ! Why did he not tell 
 me that I ^Yhat an odd old fish !" 
 
 This last remark was not intended for my 
 ears, but it made them tingle, nevertheless. 
 
 " Why was my father afraid of my return?" 
 I said, gravely, probably sternly. 
 
 " Simply for the reason that he could not see 
 what was to become of you in London." 
 
 " Did he not think that I could take care of 
 myself?" 
 
 "He thought that you had not a friend to 
 look to ; and after his arrest, and before his
 
 42 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 trial, he was always begging me or Abel to 
 write to you, and prevent, if possible, your 
 journey to England. He had had hopes of a 
 great rise in life, and hence had written to you 
 to join him, he told me. What rise in life he 
 meant, Heaven knows ; until the day of his 
 arrest, he was in my berth, and that's not a 
 particularly brilliant position, or calculated to 
 excite an individual with an extraordinary 
 prospect of coming greatness. I am wearying 
 you?" 
 
 " No," I said ; " go on." 
 
 " You were on his mind, and hence you got on 
 mine," he continued, " for he gave up writing to 
 Abel, and began to worry me instead. He 
 thought more of you than his own ease, before 
 he had two years for — but never mind that," he 
 added, hurriedly — '* and I was always receiving 
 his assurances that you were weak and delicate, 
 and would reach England totally unprepared, if 
 it were too late to stop you. It would come at 
 you, he said, like a death-blow." 
 
 " I am neither weak nor delicate," I remarked. 
 
 " Oh ! that was another of his li — ideas," he
 
 HERBERT ^-ESTMAIR. 43 
 
 cned, quickly correcting himself; " but he said 
 that a clumsy revelation would kill you, that you 
 were a child whom a breath disturbed, and he so 
 heaped up his instructions as to breaking the 
 news, that I have been in a nervous fever ever 
 since, lest one day or another you should walk 
 into the office. And when you came in I did 
 not think it was you, having expected a sickly, 
 miserable, unhappy-looking woman. Guessing 
 at last who you were, 1 was thinking of running 
 round the streets to collect my ideas, when Abel 
 dropped in and undertook a task for which I 
 was unfitted, being — being as cowardly a beggar 
 as it will be ever your fortune to meet. Miss 
 Kir by. And that awkward piece of business over 
 — this is Ludgate Hill, I think, and the fog's 
 worse than ever here — I should be glad to assist 
 you in any way that I can — I really should." 
 
 " May I ask your name ?" 
 
 "Herbert Westmair, a nephew, or half-nephew, 
 on the male side of the great family." 
 
 He said it a little ironically, laughing also at 
 the greatness of his uncle ; but I do not think 
 that there was much envy in his merriment. He
 
 44 LITTLE KATE KIRBY 
 
 appeared to me a man who regarded life care- 
 lessly, and took the good or bad fortune in it 
 lightly enough. From what he had already 
 implied he was evidently not a lucky man. 
 
 " Should 1 at any time require your assistance 
 or advice, I will write to you," I said. 
 
 I had answered more coldly than I had in- 
 tended, for he had not injured me, and the de- 
 sire to serve me was apparent ; but I could not 
 be beholden for any favour to one of the West- 
 mairs, however distantly removed. This was a 
 man who had no doubt of my father's guilt, and 
 who simply pitied me because I was alone in the 
 world, now that my father was a felon. He 
 regarded me as a child, without any power to 
 help myself; but I was strong at heart, which 
 had not broken down with shame yet. Weary 
 and heavy-laden I might be, but my old uncle 
 had taught me constancy and faith. I was 
 young, and did not know the world, or what 
 the world was like. Perhaps I was all the 
 better for that, who knows ? I might feel very 
 desolate, but I had not begun to despair. 
 
 I could not tell all this to Mr. Westmair ; I
 
 HERBERT WESTMAIR. 45 
 
 was only anxious to get rid of him, and of those 
 offers of help that were painful to listen to. I 
 wanted to feel alone, to realise my position more 
 acutely. Mr. Herbert Westmair was puzzled ; 
 he glanced several times at me as he walked by 
 my side, and studied me out of the corners of 
 his eyes. 
 
 " Write to me !" he said, at last, in reply to 
 my last remark ; •' oh, it's very doubtful if I 
 shall remain at Watling Street. It does not 
 suit me — it's a beastly life." 
 
 " I don't think that I shall require your assist- 
 ance, or that I shall be unable to help my- 
 self." 
 
 " You have no friends in London ?" 
 
 " My father told you that?" 
 
 " Yes ; it was that fact which grieved 
 him." 
 
 " I wonder " — I stopped, fearing that I might 
 hurt my companion's feelings, and then, fancy- 
 ing that he had not cared for mine much, and 
 doubting even if he had any, I contimied, " I 
 wonder what made my father think of you as a 
 fitting confidant. He should have known it
 
 46 LITTLE KATE EIRBY. 
 
 was most unlikely that I should care to place 
 trust in strangers." 
 
 "Exactly," was the reply, "but then your 
 father was in a similar mess to yourself; he 
 hadn't a friend either. I never saw such a help- 
 less, cast-down old boy in my life. He was the 
 drowning man, I was the straw, and so he made 
 a grab at me." 
 
 " I don't understand," I said, very coldly 
 now. 
 
 " I beg pardon ; I have not put it in an ele- 
 gant manner : I was always a slangy dog," he 
 said, hurriedly, "but if there was anybody 
 sorry for old Kirby — I beg pardon again — for 
 your father, anybody inclined to persuade any- 
 body else to le^ him off, kick him out, do any- 
 thing but lock him up, it was myself." 
 
 " Thank you." 
 
 " Pray don't thank me. It was only to put 
 an end to the bother. I told Abel it would 
 save no end of bother if we let the affair blow 
 over, but Abel was for duty, justice, example's 
 sake, just as he always is. He's an honourable,
 
 HERBERT WESTMAIR. 47 
 
 upright stick, that makes no allowance for the 
 wind which blows the twigs the wrong way. 
 And," he added, suddenly reverting to the sub- 
 ject which was oppressing him, "I told your 
 father that if I could be of any service — if you 
 were unfortunate enough to start before the 
 next mail brought you Abel's letter, or your 
 governor's, that you might in any way command 
 me. He — he said that it was possible you 
 might reach London without a penny in your 
 pocket. By Jove, I can imagine nothing more 
 awful than that ! Without a penny ! I remem- 
 ber when I was down to five pounds eight — 
 that was not many years ago, either," he added 
 drily — " and the sensation was devilish un- 
 pleasant." 
 
 "I have money enough for my immediate 
 needs, and I have an uncle abroad to whom I 
 can write," I said proudly. 
 
 " That's well. I am glad of that." 
 
 " I will not detain you any longer," I added ; 
 " you are coming out of your way " 
 
 " Oh, don't mention it !"
 
 48 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 "And," I concluded, "it is not likely that 
 under any circumstances you can be of service 
 to me, Mr. Westmair. T hope, with God's help, 
 to be of service to myself." 
 
 I tried to say this very confidently — I said it 
 confidently enough to deceive him, but at my 
 position I shivered a little internally. Perhaps 
 it was the fog at the foot of Ludgate Hill, where 
 it was thicker than ever, that gave me a keener 
 idea of isolation than I had experienced hitherto. 
 But I was not going to show my companion 
 that I was afraid of the world. Not I in- 
 deed ! 
 
 I stopped, and he stopped also. 
 
 '* I will wish you good evening again," I 
 said. 
 
 " Which way are you going?" 
 
 " My own way," I answered calmly, " where 
 I can think of all this by myself, and try to re- 
 member how many friends I had when I was 
 here last." 
 
 " Oh, you had friends, then ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 To be sure I had friends ! There was Katie,
 
 HERBERT WESTMAIR. 49 
 
 and she could not be dead. Had I not had a 
 letter from her by last mail ? 
 
 " Come, that's not so bad. I hope you will 
 be able to find them," he said. " May I shake 
 hands?" 
 
 He ofiered his hand to me, and 1 placed mine 
 within it for an instant. 
 
 *' I am afraid you think that I have been very 
 officious in this matter," he said, *' but I wanted 
 to keep my word to your father as well as I 
 could, and your — your position has perplexed 
 me. It had nothing to do with me — ah ! you 
 are going to say that, perhaps — but still I 
 thought that I might be of use, or that my 
 mother's advice might come in handy. Shall I 
 give you my mother's address ? — you are sure 
 to like her." 
 
 I hesitated — a woman's consolation in my 
 sore distress would have been sweet and valu- 
 able, but I could not take it from a stranger in 
 the streets — one of the Westmairs too, who 
 had brought this awful trial upon me. 
 
 " Thank you — but there is no occasion that I 
 should trouble any one." 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 "Very well,'' he said, again regarding me 
 wistfully, almost doubtfully, ^'good-bye, then. 
 I hope you will succeed in all your undertakings, 
 and get the better of this — this disappointment 
 very soon." 
 
 " Thank you," I said again. 
 
 I went away from him — I stepped into the 
 road, intending to cross over to Fleet Street, 
 when he once more took his place beside me, 
 and to my surprise drew my hand through his 
 arm. 
 
 " Yes, T know what you are going to tell me 
 — I am a horrible fellow that will not go away," 
 he said, " but if you cross the road by yourself 
 you will certainly be run over. There is always 
 a great deal of traffic here." 
 
 " I know this part of London by heart." 
 
 *' Very likely, but your knowledge is not 
 worth much in the fog," he replied. " Look out ! 
 that's a horse's head over your shoulder — Hold 
 hard, will you ?" he cried, to some one invisible 
 in the clouds. " Can't you see where you are 
 driving t "
 
 HERBERT ^VESTMAIR. 51 
 
 " Can't you and your gal get out of the road, 
 stupid?" was the rejoinder of the driver of a 
 Hansom cab. 
 
 Herbert Westmair laughed at this, and then 
 apologised to me, as he suddenly remembered 
 that I was not in a laughing humour. 
 
 " There, you see, I was of some use," he said, 
 when we were at the corner of Fleet Street ; 
 and without waiting for my answer he darted 
 back across the street, as if anxious to prove, 
 by his precipitation, that it was not his inten- 
 tion to remain any longer in my company 
 against my will. So sudden was his disappear- 
 ance that I stood there for a moment surprised 
 at my own loneliness; then I moved on towards 
 Dorset Street, from which my father had last 
 dated, and which had been home to me for 
 years before I went to Pietermaritzburg. I had 
 been cut adrift from all associations, and was 
 alone at last. In the dense, dark world about 
 me, there was only myself to depend upon. 
 No, my heart was not broken, only heavy- 
 laden — I have said so twice already. It sank 
 
 E 2 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
 
 52 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 still more after the Westmair man had gone- 
 but that was the fog. What a miserable night 
 it was !
 
 53 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE OLD LODGINGS. 
 
 A LTHOUGH my position alarmed me, I dou't 
 -^ think that I was quite selfish about it. I 
 gave two thoughts to Katie to one for myself, 
 for the child's strange disappearance, as it 
 were, became one more sorrow to tak^ into 
 my keeping. What had become of her ? Who 
 was with her ? Was she as helpless and alone 
 as I was ? and would it be possible to find her, 
 to hear all the story, and to take some comfort 
 from it, and from each other, brought together 
 again after four years of separation ? Surely I 
 should find her. I was not a dull young woman 
 — I had once heard my uncle Jeffery tell some 
 one confidentially that T was quick-witted — and
 
 54 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 I was not going to give up in a hurry the 
 search for my sister. That seemed the task 
 which I must commence in the best manner 
 that suggested itself. It was a case of great 
 emergency. At my father's old lodgings it 
 might be possible, I thought, to take up the 
 clue and follow it to the end. Katie would not 
 have vanished away and left never a trace by 
 which to discover her. She would have thought 
 of my return, and of the trouble and grief that 
 were to meet me. She had relied upon me ; 
 we had been always good friends. She would 
 be counting every hour till I came back to her. 
 But why my father had been anxious concern- 
 ing me to Herbert Westmair, and had never 
 mentioned Katie's name to him, or appeared to 
 be anxious concerning her in any way, was a 
 mystery that only my younger sister or liiy 
 father could explain. It was beyond guessing 
 at, and I tried to think it down — to set it aside 
 — as I went along Bridge Street and past the 
 hotels to Tudor Street and Dorset Street. 
 
 In the middle of Dorset Street, in apartments 
 on the first floor of a very dingy house in this
 
 THE OLD LODGINGS. 55 
 
 very dingy neighbourhood, the Kirbys had 
 fought their battle of life. Here Katie and I 
 had been born, and mother had died ; here had 
 been home, and something of happiness in the 
 midst of a long, long struggle to keep out of 
 debt — a struggle that had failed and brought 
 much anxiety, and my uncle's oifer to take me 
 away with him — growing such a big girl ! — to 
 Pietermaritzburg. Hence had dated all my 
 experience of life. Down this narrow and grimy 
 street, in the shadow of enormous gas-works, 
 and within a stone's-throw of the river, I had 
 lived sixteen years. As I turned the corner ol 
 Dorset Street the African settlement became a 
 part of dreamland from which I had awakened. 
 This was home, and I had never been away, it 
 seemed. I went straight to the house wherein 
 w^ had lodged, and where I used to wonder 
 what would become of us all if the gas-works 
 blew up. The huge gasometers were still 
 there, and we had been blown up instead, and 
 scattered such divers ways that to find each 
 other again had become almost impossible. The 
 street was dark and thick with fog ; there were
 
 56 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 no curious folk from up-stairs windows to look 
 down upon me and speculate on my mission, as 
 there would have been in the daytime amongst 
 these colonies of lodgers. The chandler's shop 
 and the coffee-shop had a glimmering of light 
 in them, but their owners had shut the fog out 
 by glass doors ; and an organ-grinder was hard 
 at Miserere^ with two children, dirty but wea- 
 ther-proof, trying ineffectually to dance to it. 
 
 I knocked at the door of the old home, but 
 the woman who opened it, and stood in the 
 passage peering out at me, shading with her 
 hand the candle that she held, was a slatternly 
 woman whom I had never seen before. 
 
 " Mrs. Green — does she live here ?" I asked. 
 
 " Mrs. Green's been dead these two years — 
 dropsy," she added, as if the cause of Mrs. 
 Green's decease might be of interest to me. 
 
 "Are you the landlady of this house?" 
 
 *'My husband took house and furniture off 
 Mrs. Green's hands afore she died, so I suppose 
 I am," she answered, somewhat sharply. " Do 
 you want anything particular ?" 
 • " Yes, I do. - My name is Kirby."
 
 THE OLD LODGINGS. 57 
 
 "Oh! is it? Then I am very glad to see 
 
 you," she said, more sharply still. "Perhaps 
 
 you'll have the goodness to step into my par- 
 
 our ? My name is Simmons, which I daresay 
 
 you've heard of." 
 
 " No, I have not." 
 
 The woman paused to consider my,reply, as 
 though it had puzzled her. Then, telling me to 
 shut the door behind me, she led the way into 
 the front parlour, which I kncAv so well. Katie 
 and I had lived and slept in this front parlour 
 for a week once — the week that mother lay 
 dead up-stairs, when w^e were little children, 
 and Mrs. Green had felt for us, stricken mother- 
 less so young. The furniture had not altered 
 much ; the glass with the rosewood frame over 
 the mantelpiece I recognised, and an old-fash- 
 ioned sideboard, with brass handles to its 
 drawers, and six long spider legs, was so like 
 an old friend that I felt for the nonce less deso- 
 late. When I looked at Mrs. Simmons, I drift- 
 ed out to sea again. She was an angular, hard- 
 faced, middle-aged woman, whom poverty had 
 pinched into a bad temper, which nothing now
 
 58 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 could cure. She was a miserably-clad, untidy 
 being, who had left on the hearthrug an untidier 
 specimen of human-kind in the shape of a grimy 
 baby twelve months old, whilst she had re- 
 sponded to my summons. This baby was 
 snatched at after setting the brass candlestick 
 upon the table, and she proceeded to hammer its 
 back as it lay across her lap, with a wild idea 
 that she was soothing it to sleep. The baby 
 cried instead, however, and she shook it for a 
 moment, before re-commencing the hammering 
 process with more energy. • 
 
 " Sit down, marm, there's a chair. What's 
 the matter with the child to-night, I don't 
 know, squalling and squealing like this, and no 
 one to help me? It's well that we poor people 
 have patience, or we should die pretty quick of 
 worry. So your name's Kirby, is it? — related 
 to the Kirbys who lodged here, and played me 
 such a trick ?" 
 
 " A trick !" I repeated. " Do you mean that 
 my father, Mr. Kirby " 
 
 " Oh ! he's your father, is he ? Come, I'm 
 glad of that, if you've called to settle what's
 
 THE OLD LODGINGS. 59 
 
 owing, which I suppose you have, or you 
 wouldn't be here to brazen it out with the rest 
 of 'em. They was an ungrateful lot, but you 
 ain't of that kidney, maybe. Lay still, do," she 
 added to her baby. " I'm not at all surprised 
 that mothers squelch their little ones sometimes, 
 when their husbands are dead, and their sons 
 are beasts, like mine, and go out drinking, and 
 leave their mothers all the slavery at home. 
 That's what it is." 
 
 And Mrs. Simmons, having shadowed forth 
 her own grievances not indistinctly, thumped 
 away again at her baby, who, after a second 
 protest of a feebler description, condescended to 
 shut its eyes. My position was not an enviable 
 one, but there was news to be learned from this 
 virago, and though I was afraid of her, I was 
 not sorry that I had called. 
 
 " My father is in debt to you ?" I inquired. 
 
 " Oh ! you don't know that, then 1" she asked 
 ironically ; " yes, that's very likely. Where 
 have you been all this time ?" 
 
 "■ I have been in South Africa. I have only 
 returned this afternoon."
 
 60 LITTLE KATE KTRBY. 
 
 " Pity you hadn't stayed there." 
 
 I was of the same opinion myself by this time. 
 
 " Pity you hadn't stayed there," this waspish 
 woman repeated, " if you come over to take up 
 with such cheats as Kved in my first floor. The 
 lies they told about what they were going to 
 do to make their fortunes, and pay off all they 
 owed, was enough to bring the roof down on 
 their 'eads, which, if it had, would have been a 
 judgment that'd served them to the rights. They 
 owed me thirteen pounds six shillings when 
 they were sewed up. I don't know how the 
 money went at all. I only know I got cheek 
 for my share — that saucy young minx was your 
 sister, I s'pose f 
 
 *' Katie ?" I cried quickly. 
 
 " Ah, yes, Katie — that's her." 
 
 " What has become of her ?" 
 
 " I don't know, and don't care. When your 
 father was took to prison for thieving " 
 
 " Oh, don't !" I cried, and my cheeks felt as 
 if hot irons had been placed on them. 
 
 " Well, he was took, I s'pose, and a good take 
 too, for what he was worth. If he'd been my
 
 THE OLD LODGINGS. 61 
 
 father, I should have been ashamed of him long 
 ago, and not have come from Hafriker to ask 
 him how he was. Thirteen pounds six shil- 
 lings," she added, and in her excitement and 
 absence of mind she began to hammer the baby 
 again — " think of that to the likes of me, hard 
 up as I am, with not a lodger in the house, and 
 Dick — that's the son who pretends to support 
 me — getting the sack next Saturday. If you 
 could pay any of it, say a week or two off, good 
 Lord ! the help you'd be to me jest now !" 
 
 The eager look of the woman was pitiable to 
 witness, and made me forget her want of con- 
 sideration towards me. And, after all, why 
 should she care for me or my position ? What 
 was I in any way but a member of the family 
 that had run into her debt ? 
 
 " I was not aware of this claim upon us," I 
 said. "If in any way I can pay it, or pay 
 something off presently, v/hen I am settled and 
 earning money for myself, I will. I give you 
 my word." 
 
 " Ah ! do you ?" said the woman, phlegmati- 
 cally. " I had your father's word, and a bad
 
 62 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 one it was, your fine sister's word, and that 
 was gammon, and now I have got yours. It's 
 lucky to get the lot of the family's promises, 
 but they butter no parsnips, you see." 
 
 " You — you were speaking of my sister," said 
 I, in the most conciliatory tone that I could 
 adopt — " what became of her after my poor fa- 
 ther's arrest ? She " 
 
 I stopped, hoping that Mrs. Simmons would 
 take up my cue. 
 
 " She walked out of the house as full of airs 
 and graces as if her father had been made Lord 
 Mayor of London, that's all," said Mrs. Sim- 
 mons. " I didn't run after her, and beg her to 
 keep the lodgings on, you may be sure. Glad 
 enough was I to get shut of her at any price, 
 and as for her coming back soon to pay my 
 rubbishing rent, as she called it, why, I believe 
 that just as much as I believe you. There !" 
 
 And with this humiliating peroration, she 
 rose and w-alked from the room, with the baby 
 in her arms. How long she was away, 1 do 
 not know; I made no effort to withdraw. I 
 fell into deep thought, or, rather, into a deep
 
 THE OLD LODGINGS. 63 
 
 stupor, that was something Uke thought, but 
 wasn't, and when she came back without the 
 child, I was sitting with my hands clasped, 
 staring at the worn carpet, just as she had left 
 me. 
 
 * Mrs. Simmons stood by the door regarding 
 me attentively after her return ; when I looked 
 up, I saw that she was studying me, taking in 
 every article of my attire, and mentally sum- 
 ming me up as she continued the analysis. 
 Yes, hers was a very sour face, but I fancied 
 that there was a trifle less acidulation in it 
 when I met her gaze again. 
 
 "Did you say you come from Afriker this 
 afternoon f 
 
 "I reached London to-day." 
 
 " Expecting to find them here, as usual — lor' ! 
 the likes of that !" 
 
 " I thought that they would be easy to find," 
 I answered, as I rose, " and I did not expect 
 this. I am detaining you." 
 
 " Oh, I've got lots of time," she said, with an 
 angry snort, '* and wus luck is it !" 
 
 I thought that she had not had even time
 
 64 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 enough to wash her face and hands, but Mrs. 
 Simmons, in a lodgerless house, was evidently 
 not busy. She had not expected company, her 
 son was out, and there was no one to wash 
 for. 
 
 " I think I see it all as plain as plain," saiS. 
 Mrs. Simmons suddenly ; " their lies got over 
 you too, and you came to London to take a 
 share of their good fortun', and gave up a good 
 place, per'aps. They served you out as well as 
 a poor widder like me, did they — the unfeeling 
 brutes?" 
 
 " Don't talk so," I said, more warmly ; " my 
 father and sister meant all for the best. How 
 it happened that the worst has come, and that 
 I meet ruin and shame where I had expected 
 much of comfort, heaven knows — but they 
 meant all for the best, I am sure." 
 
 '' Well, it was a blessed rum way of showing 
 it, and no mistake," said the woman, bluntly. 
 " What are you going to do ?" 
 
 " I am not certain," I replied, hesitatingly — 
 " I don't see my way yet." 
 
 " Have you got any money?"
 
 THE OLD LODGINGS. 65 
 
 "Yes— alittJe." 
 
 I did not say how little, but I added — 
 
 " Not enough to pay anything off my father's 
 debt— I wish I had." 
 
 The woman tossed her head at this ; she was 
 evidently sick at heart of the Kirby protesta- 
 tions. Still she was a woman of business — a 
 woman of the world — who made the best of the 
 poor chances that presented themselves in her 
 sordid sphere of life, and I was a chance to her 
 in my small way. 
 
 "If you don't know where to lodge," she 
 said, "there's all the upstairs rooms empty, and 
 you can have the back bedroom for two shil- 
 lings, if you pay aforehand. I don't trust no 
 more, of course." 
 
 I hesitated. It was a relief to know that 
 there was a roof over my head offered for one 
 night, but the woman's manner was repel- 
 lent, and the woman herself forbidding. Still 
 it was a home in its way — it had been my home 
 years before this, and I did not feel quite deso- 
 late and helpless therein. Here was rest — and 
 I was tired and weak, and wanted time to turn 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 66 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 round and think what was to become of me, 
 and what Jiad become of Katie. 
 
 The woman seemed honest, though disagree- 
 able, and by degrees her manner might thaw a 
 little, and I might learn something more of the 
 lodgers who had at least been tw^o years with 
 her, and had paid her whilst they were able. I 
 might learn a great deal presently, if I were 
 patient, and this woman was patient too. 
 
 *' I think I will accept your offer for one 
 night," I said, drawing out my purse. 
 
 *' You'd better see the room fust," she said, 
 more independently — "you mayn't like it." ~ 
 
 She took the candlestick from the table, and 
 led the way upstairs to the top of the house, to 
 the very room where Katie and I had slept to- 
 gether last. The furniture was not changed, 
 and the room was cleaner and brighter than I 
 had bargained for. I knew the Bible pictures 
 on the walls, until the mist came into my eyes 
 and hid them from me. How many times had 
 I told Katie of the stories which those pictures 
 had attempted vainly in their garish colouring 
 to illustrate, and she had lain by my side, with
 
 THE OLD LODGINGS. 67 
 
 her big blue eyes, full of wonder and awe, turn- 
 ing from me towards the prints. She was a 
 golden-haired little child when those stories 
 interested her, good and loving, and only some- 
 what spoiled by her mother, perhaps by me. 
 Oh, my little Katie, what a time -that is ago I — 
 and why do I rain such bitter tears upon these 
 leaves to think of it ? 
 
 " We've the furniture, you see — as we have 
 in the fii'st-floor front," Mrs. Simmons explain- 
 ed ; " we took all we could get, but Tunks, the 
 broker down the street, only offered me seven 
 pounds for the lot last week, and we took it of 
 your father as fifteen pounds off. For it was 
 twenty-eight pounds six shillings, mind you, 
 afore we had this heap of rubbish on our hands. 
 But there it is," she said, putting her candle- 
 stick on the drawers, " and clean it all is. I've 
 been working at it to-day until I'm fit to drop, 
 or my own place and myself would have been a 
 bit tidier," she added, as if suddenly awakening 
 to a sense of the condition of her front parlour 
 and herself; " and there's the light, which 
 you're welcome to. Is that all the lug^ 
 
 f2
 
 68 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 you've come from Afriker with?" she asked, 
 regarding my small travelling-bag suspiciously. 
 
 " No — this is for immediate use," I said ; " my 
 box is left till called for." 
 
 " Simmons used to say never take in people 
 without boxes, and see that there ain't stones in 
 </iem," said the woman, thoughtfully ; " but 
 you're only here for one night at two shillings — 
 payable aforehand." 
 
 " Oh ! I beg your pardon — I had forgotten." 
 
 I opened my purse — which Mrs. Simmons at- 
 tentively surveyed, and even stood on tiptoe to 
 get a better view of — and paid her the two 
 shillings for which she had waited. 
 
 " Thank you," she said, more graciously, for 
 the mere fact of getting money from a Kirby 
 was evidently overpowering. " Maybe you have 
 not had any tea ? It's easy to get a cup from 
 the coffee-shop hard by. I do at this time of 
 year — when Dick isn't coming home — it saves 
 trouble and fire." 
 
 " If you would be so kind as that," I said. 
 " Let me see, that will be three-halfpence 
 more."
 
 THE OLD LODGIXGS. 69 
 
 I remembered well the old Dorset Street 
 prices. 
 
 " Yes, without anything to eat." 
 " I cannot eat anything, thank you." 
 I paid Mrs. Simmons three-halfpence, with 
 which she immediately departed, leaving me 
 alone in the old room. It was not home to 
 me now, but it seemed so like home, that 
 for a little while I was unnerved again, as I 
 had been at the first glimpse of the pictures 
 on the walls. Nothing seemed so far oJBT in this 
 place as it had been in the murky streets ; and 
 the figures of the past might glide in at any 
 moment to save me from my isolation. 
 
 " This will not do, Faith," I said, before Mrs. 
 Simmons came up-stairs again with the tea, but 
 not before I had heard her advancing, in boots 
 that flapped noisily as she walked ; '* you must 
 keep strong, my child, till Katie's found."
 
 70 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 IN THE FOG AGAIN. 
 
 T HAD pens, ink, and paper in my bag — much 
 -■- of the time on ship-board had been em- 
 ployed in the keeping of a Httle diary, which I 
 had intended to send back to Uncle Jef — and 
 after my tea I sat down to write a few letters. 
 The mail for the Cape might leave to-morrow, 
 and it was as well not to lose a moment's time 
 in writing to my uncle, giving him some idea of 
 mj position, but telling him that I Avas very 
 strong, that I trusted in myself and in Heaven's 
 goodness to find Katie, and to be comforted 
 presently for all the unlooked-for trouble by 
 which I had been met. I was puzzled what 
 address to give him, but I told him that in a
 
 • IX THE FOG AGAIX. 71 
 
 few days I would write again, with all the par- 
 ticulars that I had learned meanwhile, and I 
 begged him not to be anxious concerning me. 
 All would be well in time, I hoped. 
 
 My second letter was to my father, in the 
 great Holloway Prison, to which City felons are 
 drafted. I informed him that I was in London, 
 cast down utterly by the news which I had 
 received, and urged him to write at once, to the 
 old address in Dorset Street, and give me 
 Katie's address, if he were acquainted with it, 
 which I prayed he was, which I thought he must 
 be, and yet which I doubted, as though some 
 mystery hung over Katie's absence that even he 
 could not explain. My third letter was to the 
 governor of Holloway Prison, enclosing my 
 second, apologising for any informality in my 
 method of procedure, trusting that the rules 
 would allow my letter to be delivered to my 
 father, and re-stating my case, and my strange 
 situation, friendless and solitary, in the hope 
 that he would be interested in the story, and do 
 all for me in his power of which he was capable. 
 I begged for an early permission to see my
 
 72 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 father, and used all the special and earnest 
 pleading at my command — it was not much — 
 to attain that object. 
 
 A fourth letter completed my correspondence. 
 It was an inspiration that prompted me to 
 write it, or a reckless consciousness that I could 
 not exert myself too much, or repeat my case 
 too often, in order to awaken sympathy in those 
 who could throw back the barriers between me 
 and Jonathan Kirby, a prisoner at Holloway. I 
 wrote to the Lord Mayor, as chief magistrate of 
 the City of London, asking for an order to see 
 my father, and repeating once more the facts of 
 my sad case. Then, satisfied that I had made 
 a good beginning — that I had not lost time, I 
 went downstairs with the letters in my hand, 
 and with my bonnet on, bent upon the mission 
 of posting them at once. 1 had brought the 
 light with me, and Mrs. Simmons, with the baby 
 in her arms, and the baby crying its loudest, 
 emerged in a bent attitude from the parlour, 
 probably to make sure that I was not carrying 
 out of the establishment some property that did 
 not belong to me. Being one of the Kirbys
 
 IX THE FOG AGAIX. 73 
 
 who had in tim'es past served her very shabbily, 
 it w^as necessary to be wary, and Mrs. Simmons 
 was e\4dently a vigilant as well as a suspicious 
 woman. 
 
 *' Oh, you're going out again," she said. 
 
 " Yes, to post a few letters. I shall not be 
 long." 
 
 " You can be just as long as you like — we're 
 late people here ; Dick never comes home till 
 half-past twelve." 
 
 She looked gloomily at the letters once more. 
 
 " You seem to have plenty of friends, after 
 all," she said, with the old sullenness exhibiting 
 itself. 
 
 " Two friends, I hope," I said, showing the 
 letters — " my uncle in Pietermaritzburg, and my 
 father in prison. They were always good to 
 me. The other two, I hope, wall be friends in 
 their way presently." 
 
 " If you're asking them for money, I'm sure 
 they w^on't," said ^Irs. Simmons, sententiously, 
 as she turned towards the parlour again, paus- 
 ing on the threshold to add, " You can leave 
 the street-door ajar ; no one's likely to rob me,
 
 74 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 and if the baby's up when yoii come back, it 
 will save my dragging it into the passage. 
 I'm fit to drop to-night, with the child, as it is." 
 Thus enjoined, I left the door ajar, and went 
 on towards Fleet Street and the post-ofifice. 
 The fog had increased in density and in depth 
 of blackness with the night, and the street- 
 lamps were no longer visible ; it was as well 
 that the neighbourhood was familiar to me, or I 
 might have found some difficulty in Dorset 
 Street. I was proceeding cautiously along the 
 street towards the main thoroughfare at the 
 top, when it occurred to me very suddenly and 
 unaccountably that some one w\\s following. 
 Whether I had grown nervous with anxiety, 
 or the night and the night's echoes were de- 
 ceiving me, I was uncertain, but as I stopped to 
 listen, footsteps behind me seemed to stop also, 
 and when I went on again I heard heavy feet 
 proceeding once more at a few paces distant. 
 Mrs. Simmons might have thought it worth 
 while to watch me, to make sure that some 
 new Kirby trick was not being hatched against 
 her peace ; but I had left her with the baby, and
 
 IN THE FOG AGAIN. 75 
 
 it was a man's footfall, not a woman's, that was 
 rendering me nervous. 
 
 " Some one going the same way as myself," 
 I said, assuringly, and then I felt a throb of 
 indignation as the new thought suggested itself 
 that possibly Herbert Westmair was resolved 
 upon not losing sight of me, whether I wished 
 it or not. I was glad when I was in Fleet 
 Street, though I did not regard my return to 
 Dorset Street with complete satisfaction. I was 
 even thinking of taking a circuit back along 
 Fleet Street, and round Bridge Street and 
 Tudor Street, in preference to returning by the 
 same route, and was deliberating upon the 
 expedient after I had posted my letters in a 
 huge pillar-box, which had been a London im- 
 provement since my residence abroad. 
 
 I was in doubt, when the watcher — I am sure 
 that it was he who had been watching — came 
 straight towards me and peered into my face, 
 startling me with his haggardness and ghastli- 
 ness. It was a face that I had not seen before, 
 and the sunken grey eyes were overshadowed 
 by two great bushy eyebrows. It was a face I
 
 76 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 did not like — an uncommon, fierce, strange, 
 sickly face which stereotyped itself npon me. 
 
 "Miss Kirby, isn't it f said a voice, tremu- 
 lous with eagerness; "you have come then, 
 Katie, as you promised."
 
 77 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 MRS. SIMMONS HAS HER DISLIKES. 
 
 /^OULD this be a coincidence, altogether a 
 ^ dream from which I should awake over my 
 letter-writing, or was it a reality born of my 
 prayers that Katie might be restored to me ? 
 " If the last, Heaven has been very good to 
 me,'' I thought, in that simple pious way, out of 
 which, alas ! I have grown a little. 
 
 I leaned against the pillar-box, looking at my 
 questioner's white face, the expression of which 
 wavered as I looked, and became confused. 
 
 "Katie!" I gasped forth. "What do you 
 know of Katie Kirby ?" 
 
 " I — I beg pardon — it's a mistake," the voice
 
 78 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 said huskily. The man backed and grew fainter 
 in the fog, like a figure in a phantasmagoria, 
 and then vanished suddenly. Two or three 
 wild steps forward brought me to the closed 
 shutters of a shop, against which a burly police- 
 man was standing, to whom I appealed in my 
 anxiety. 
 
 " Some one passed just now — I was speaking 
 to him — which way has he gone, policeman ?" 
 
 "1 don't know — I haven't seen anybody. 
 Have you had your pocket picked, miss ?" he 
 inquired. 
 " No, no." 
 
 " Ah, that's lucky. There's lots of light fin- 
 gers and light heels about to-night." 
 
 I went down Salisbury Street thinking of all 
 this, wondering what it all meant, inclined once 
 more to believe that it had been an odd hallu- 
 cination born of a long day's fatigue. I reach- 
 ed the house in Dorset Street, and was not 
 watched in my return, so far as I was aware. 
 
 The street-door was as I had left it at Mrs. 
 Simmons's suggestion ; I closed it behind me, 
 and then looked in upon my landlady sitting in
 
 MRS. SDDIOXS HAS HER DISLIKES. 79 
 
 the parlour still, with the baby stiff and rampant 
 in her arms. There was a most unamiable ex- 
 pression on Mrs. Simmons's countenance; the 
 babj had tried her temper very much in my 
 absence, and there was no sleep in it. 
 
 " The baby is still awake, then ?" I ventured 
 to say. 
 
 "Oh — awake — yes," she answered crossly; 
 " it's always awake when it ought to be asleep 
 — as contrairy as life itself." 
 
 " Shall I hold the baby for a Httle while?" 
 
 The offer was a startling one to Mrs. Sim- 
 mons. She was in the middle of an extraordinary 
 gymnastic performance, that consisted of tilting 
 herself from the back to the front legs of her chair, 
 which not being a rocking one, or in any way 
 contrived for the purpose, threatened at every 
 movement to collapse with her ; she paused in 
 mid-air to consider my proposition. I blushed at 
 her steady survey of me. I was fond of babies, 
 though I preferred them less gritty, and babies 
 as a rule took to me, but it was only with the hope 
 of learning more news of my family that I had 
 volunteered my services, and I feared that my
 
 80 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 artfulness was apparent on my guilty counte- 
 nance. 
 
 *' You can have her for a minute or two, if 
 you like," Mrs. Simmons said; "come in and sit 
 down." 
 
 I complied with her request, and Mrs. Sim- 
 mons put the baby into my arms. It was a 
 pretty child, despite a black smutch from the 
 roots of its hair to the tip of its dubby nose ; 
 and after a long stare at me, it reached out two 
 little fists towards the brooch at my neck, and 
 burst into twenty dimples. 
 
 " She seems to fancy you," said Mrs. Sim- 
 mons, after a while, " and that's saying a great 
 deal, as she won't go ou^ of my arms if she can 
 help it. She's a dreadful worrit." 
 
 " From which you would not care to be 
 spared, I dare say ?" 
 
 The sour visage softened somewhat. 
 
 "Well, no; though when my temper's up — 
 and I'm rather shortish — I do wish orful things 
 about her. I daresay," she said reflectingly, 
 " it would be a mussy if she were tooked — I 
 often think that of baby gals with no father, or
 
 MRS. SIMMOXS HAS HER DISLIKES. 81 
 
 no mother, or not much chance ahead of 'em, 
 and I've thought it of her. But she's post- 
 humorous, jou see — she was born a fortnight 
 after Simmons was buried, and six had died 
 afore her, and for her to live was funny. No- 
 body expected it," she went on, becoming lo- 
 quacious over her infant, " for she Tvas born a 
 mite that you could put in a quart pot, but she 
 throve after the first five weeks like a good one, 
 andtheu got dreadful bad with whooping-cough, 
 which brought her down to nothing. The 
 doctors said that change of air might save her, 
 and though I had no money, and your people 
 was serving me out shameful, I gave her all the 
 change I could. I walked her seven or eight 
 miles into the country — sometimes to Totten- 
 ham, sometimes t'other way to Willesden — day 
 after day, and then seven miles back again, and 
 so I think I saved her by degrees. Of course I 
 let the house go anyhow, but that didn't matter 
 to me then." 
 
 Mrs. Simmons rose several degrees in my 
 estimation after her confession. In a woman 
 who could adopt these novel means to afibrd 
 VOL. L G,
 
 82 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 her baby change of ah', who could struggle on 
 day after day hi the hope of saving her child, 
 who gave up work, and " let the house go any- 
 how," as she termed it, in the mother's strong 
 yearning to preserve one little life unto herself, 
 I thought I saw a fair trait of character under- 
 lying much of the ruggedness of her every-day 
 aspect. 
 
 " What is her name ?" 
 
 " Kate," she said, sullenly and slowly. 
 
 " Kate— Katie— after " 
 
 " Yes, after your sister," was the information 
 begrudgingly vouchsafed to me. " I was ill in 
 bed, and it fretted me to think the baby might 
 die without being christened, and one day your 
 sister came in, and told me that Dick and she 
 had taken it round the corner to church, and 
 had had it christened Kate. I was cross at first, 
 but they meant it well, I s'pose, though Dick 
 had no right to ask that gal to be my baby's 
 godmother, without speaking of it to me. She 
 a godmother, indeed! I told 'em my mind, 
 though I wasn't sorry afterwards, thinking that
 
 ilES. SBDIOXS HAS HER DISLIKES. 83 
 
 the child must die, which she didn't. Mind she 
 she doesn't scratch herself with that brooch of 
 yours. I Tvdsh you hadn't taken her, she'll be 
 awake for hours now you've roused her," she 
 added. 
 
 " She was awake when I came in," I said. 
 '^ And so this is another Katie ! Was my sister 
 fond of her r 
 
 " Not a bit. She was never fond of anybody 
 but herself," said Mrs. Simmons, "and never 
 thought of anybody but herself, except now 
 and then in a spasm, when she couldn't help 
 it." 
 
 " Oh ! I hope you're wrong — I know you are," 
 I cried ; " she was impatient, perhaps a little 
 wilful, spoiled a great deal by mother and father, 
 but she was always warm-hearted." 
 
 " How old was she when you went away ?" 
 
 " Thirteen." 
 
 " Ah! I didn't know her then," was the answer, 
 " but I can't abide her now." 
 
 " Why not r 
 
 " Oh ! don't ask me," 
 
 g2
 
 84 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 '' You have some particular reason for your 
 dislike of her, I think." 
 
 " You're sharp," Mrs. Simmons remarked sen- 
 tentiouslj ; *' p'raps I have." 
 
 "I wish that you would tell me what it 
 is." 
 
 " That wouldn't do you any good, nor me 
 neither, though, mind you, I don't say as how I 
 have. There's no more accounting for one's 
 dislikes than one's likes, and I don't like her 
 well enough to wish to see her, that's all. See 
 her again, I hope I never may." 
 
 I endeavoured to lead round the conversation 
 to my father, and to acquire from Mrs. Simmons 
 some details as to the cause of his imprisonment. 
 Herbert Westmair had spoken of my father's 
 having fallen into bad hands, of a studied series 
 of defalcations, of Jonathan Kirby having gone 
 wrong altogether ; but Mrs. Simmons could not 
 enlighten me as to any antecedents. 
 
 " They told me at Westmair's, this afternoon, 
 that he had altered very strangely," I said ; *' if 
 his mind were affected by his position, it might
 
 MRS. SIMMONS HAS HER DISLIKES. 85 
 
 accoimt for much that is at present inexpli- 
 cable." 
 
 " He was always the same, so long as I knew 
 him," Mrs. Simmons replied, "sly enough for 
 fifty people. He did suddenly begin to talk big, 
 and to* lord it over me — he was going to be 
 rich, and pay everybody, with lots of interest — 
 and then they came here one night and took 
 him off to prison." 
 
 "Was Katie at home then?" 
 
 My thoughis would come round to her, and I 
 bore up against my landlady's disparaging re- 
 flections for the sake of the information that I 
 might be able to obtain. After all, I had learn- 
 ed nothing. 
 
 " Oh, yes, Katie was at home." 
 
 " How did she bear it f 
 
 *' She went on about the family disgrace, and 
 cried like anything, and said she'd drown her- 
 self for shame. But she got over it wonderful 
 quick, which was a mussy in its way." 
 
 " You speak bitterly," I said ; " I wish that you 
 ^vould tell me " -
 
 86 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 " I have nothing to tell about her," Mrs. Sim- 
 mons said, before I could complete my adjur- 
 ation ; '* it's no use your worriting about your 
 sister, I haven't time to think of everything that 
 she said and did while she was here. Why can't 
 you let her rest ? She didn't like me, and there 
 wasn't any love lost." 
 
 "And you have no idea where she is 
 now ? " 
 
 " Thank goodness, no !" was the quick reply. 
 " Have you done with my baby ?" 
 
 " She's quiet now. I fancy that she is 
 sleepy." 
 
 " Not with all this talking in her ears," said 
 Mrs. Simmons, taking her baby from my arms. 
 " I'll try her in the other room again." 
 
 Mrs. Simmons departed, and I was left alone 
 to consider if I had discovered anything by my 
 patience. No, there was not a trace of Katie 
 Kirby. I had not even found a clue to her 
 character, for the hard woman who had left me 
 was unjust, as are all people with strong pre- 
 judices. J thought myself to sleep, born of a
 
 MRS. SIMMONS HAS HER DISLIKES. 87 
 
 long day's fatigue ; but it was a feverish slumber, 
 which told of much excitement at my heart, for 
 all the composure that I had struggled to main- 
 tain. 1 passed into an awful dreamland. My 
 father was in a dungeon, chained to the wall, as 
 in the old prison days of which I had read in 
 books of martyrs, and I was listening to his 
 shrieks for mercy, and his curses on those who 
 had punished him for a crime of w^hich he had 
 been the victim, not the perpetrator. They 
 were going to torture him, and the Westmairs, 
 father and son, were scowling from an open 
 doorway high up in the wall ; whilst over their 
 shoulders was the mocking face of Herbert 
 Westmair, the man who had taken care of me 
 in the fog that evening. Katie and I were to- 
 gether, both imploring the Westmairs for mercy, 
 and Katie had proofs of my father's innocence, 
 w^hich proofs his persecutors saw at last, and 
 came down a flight of stone steps towards us to 
 wrench from our hands at any cost. We were 
 cow^ering amongst the straw in a corner of the 
 cell, shrieking for help as they advanced, and
 
 88 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 my father was struggling madly to break his 
 chains and dash to our deliverance, when I 
 awoke with a scream, and with that sickness 
 and heart-throbbing common to such nightmare 
 horrors. 
 
 Where was I? Had I passed from one bad 
 dream to another? Who was this man stand- 
 ing on Mrs. Simmons's hearth-rug, with his 
 hands in the pockets of his trousers, and a cap 
 pulled closely over his forehead ! He had been 
 regarding me witt^ immense interest, for his 
 mouth was half open, and his eyes protruding 
 from his head. I was more of a surprise to him 
 than he was to me. After I had stared at him 
 for a few seconds, he said in a thick voice — 
 " Where's mother f ' 
 
 " I don't know," I answered. '* I have been 
 asleep, I think." 
 
 " You've been dreaming badly," he said. " I 
 can't make it out, but I do that kind of thing 
 myself — often, too. I suppose you are — who 
 are you, did you say ?" he said, suddenly adopt- 
 ing the interrogative form as more convenient 
 to himself.
 
 MRS. SIMMONS HAS HER DISLIKES. 89 
 
 " I am lodging here for a night," I repHed. 
 " Are you Mrs. Simmons's son ?" 
 
 " Yes, I am," he answered. " Where's 
 mother ? " 
 
 " Putting the baby to sleep." 
 
 " She's always putting the baby to sleep," he 
 muttered in an aggrieved tone. 
 
 He was as cross-tempered as his mother, I 
 thought, as he walked across the room, and 
 lumped himself down into the first vacant chair, 
 where he remained till Mrs. Simmons's entrance. 
 But before Mrs. Simmons re-appeared, I had re- 
 cognised him. At the first sight of him, when 
 he had seemed to be the continuation of my 
 dream under another aspect, the pallid face had 
 struck me as a something that I had seen be- 
 fore, and a second glance assured me that it 
 was he who had called me Katie when I was 
 standing at the letter-box in Fleet Street. 
 There was no mistaking the unhealthy look of 
 the man, the grey sunken eyes gleaming from 
 a face strangely white, or the heavy black eye- 
 brows lowering above them, although the eager- 
 ness of expression which had startled me was
 
 90 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 replaced by a stolidness of aspect that bordered 
 on stupidity. Was I approaching closer to the 
 solution of one mystery ? I thought so, and I 
 was v^ry glad.
 
 91 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 DICK SIMMONS. 
 
 T CONTINUED to regard Mr. Simmons fur- 
 
 ^ tively, preparing my course of action mean- 
 while. He had got over his curiosity concern- 
 ing me, and was sitting with his hands in his 
 pockets, and his shoulders above his ears, a 
 masculine distortion. He was a plain man, 
 with a face very old-looking for his years, 
 which, I learned afterwards from his mother, 
 numbered two-and-twenty. He seemed to me 
 that night to be quite thirty years of age, and, 
 like Abel Westmair, to be carrying his years 
 but indifferently well. 
 
 He was dressed badly, but there had been an
 
 92 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 effort at some time or other of the day to 
 smarten himself up. The cravat was of a daz- 
 zHng blue, but the tie had got round to his ear, 
 aud disclosed in the process a soiled and crum- 
 pled shirt-front ; the coat was black and almost 
 new, and the trousers were of that thick, heavy 
 velveteen common to the lower classes who 
 have hard work to do, and plenty of it. 
 
 He had appeared at first anxious to ascertain 
 my name, or the motive for my presence in the 
 house ; but that feeling had died away, or been 
 quickly suppressed, and he w^as sitting before 
 me stolid and inanimate, with his cloth cap, 
 more suitable for a boy than a man, pulled 
 tightly over his head. 
 
 " I have seen you before this evening, Mr. 
 Simmons ?" I said. 
 
 He gave a perceptible writhe in his chair, as 
 if to accommodate himself to various angles 
 therein, before he answered me. 
 
 " Yes," he repKed at last, " you have." 
 
 "You took me for my sister — for one who 
 used to lodge in this house?" I continued. 
 
 He was silent for some minutes. I thought
 
 DICK SIMMONS. 93 
 
 that it was his intention not to answer me, 
 when he said, after swallowing something in 
 his way of utterance — 
 
 "Well, I did." 
 
 He was a man evidently on guard, and not 
 to be led into a long discussion ; he even seemed 
 a man who was afi'aid to trust himself to any 
 rigid questioning, he paused so long to con- 
 sider his best method of reply. 
 
 "You were waiting for my sister," I said, 
 *' and you expected to meet her to-night ?" 
 
 To this question he did not answer, and after 
 he had sat silent and sheep-faced for as long a 
 period as my patience would allow, I said — 
 
 " Am I right or wrong, Mr. Simmons ?" 
 
 " Oh, you're right enough," he said, with a 
 sullenness that proved him to be his own mo- 
 ther's son. 
 
 " You know where Katie is, then?" I cried; 
 " I am very, very glad ; you have saved me 
 from much anxiety, though why she should 
 trust to you, I — I don't know, of course. Please 
 tell me where to find her, and I will go at once. 
 I could not rest in this house, knowing that she 
 
 \
 
 94 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 was close by. And she is very near — I am sure 
 of it!" 
 
 My excitement appeared to bring more sense, 
 or more caution, to Mr. Simmons ; he took his 
 hands from his pockets, rested them on the 
 arms of his chair, half rose, then sat down 
 again, regarding me intently all the while, and 
 still as if he were afraid of me. 
 
 ** I don't know," he said — " I really don't 
 know where your sister Katie lives. I wish to 
 God 1 did ! " he added, with a sudden vehe- 
 mence that led me to recoil from him. 
 " You were waiting for her I" 
 
 " Yes, because — because she said " 
 
 " Said what ? Why should there be any 
 mystery about it, anything to be ashamed of, or 
 to keep from me ? Said what ?" 
 
 " She said — she promised," he explained, after 
 another gulp down of something in his throat, 
 " that she would, some fine night, come back to 
 me — to us again — ^just as she used to do, you 
 know ; that I might look out for her in this 
 street ; that she didn't bear me malice, but 
 good-will ; and that if I waited she would come,
 
 DICK SIMMONS. 95 
 
 and show me she was just the same as ever. 
 And so night after night, until half-past eight 
 o'clock by St. Paul's " — he was very precise as 
 regarded the time, it seemed — " I have waited ; 
 but she doesn't come. She has fine friends 
 now, and we're poor poverty-stricken wretches ; 
 but if she has a better friend than Dick Sim- 
 mons in all the world, why, strike me dead, 
 that's all I" 
 
 It dawned upon me that Dick Simmons had 
 been drinking since I had posted my letters in 
 Fleet Street ; it suggested itself to me that 
 he was a weak fellow, who had fostered a 
 silly fancy for my sister, until it had almost 
 turned his head, and led him perhaps, poor 
 wretch, to drink. When he dashed his cap 
 upon the floor, and kicked it afterwards across 
 the room by way of emphasis to his remarks, 
 I had no doubt of both my suppositions, and the 
 few tears in which he surreptitiously indulged 
 only strengthened my conviction, I thought 
 more of Katie than of him, however. 
 
 "How do you know that Katie has fine 
 friends?"
 
 96 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 "I — I don't know," he replied, after a moment's 
 hesitation ; " how should I know anything for 
 certain ? She wouldn't come here to say any- 
 thing about them ; she wouldn't take any trouble 
 about me, a man at the gas-works over the way 
 till Saturday, when he gets the sack, and serve 
 him damned well right. But she has better 
 than friends we are ; oh ! yes, lots of 'em — she'll 
 find that out in time." 
 
 He struck his hand upon the wooden elbow 
 of his chair with a force that must have hurt 
 him, though he regarded it not in the passion 
 which had suddenly replaced his grief and weak- 
 ness. The raised tones of his voice brought his 
 mother from the next room into the front parlour. 
 
 " Don't holler like that, now the baby is off,'' 
 she said sharply. "Here, what's the matter? 
 Hold up your head, do." 
 
 Mrs. Simmons stretched forth her bony hand, 
 took her son by the blue cravat, and held his 
 head back over the chair, as though she was 
 going to shave him, till he resisted the indig- 
 nity and wrenched himself from her clutch, with 
 an angry oath or two.
 
 DICK SIMMONS. 97 
 
 " Ah ! that's the way," said Mrs. Simmons, 
 ironically, " that's wns and wus, jest as I said it 
 would be. You can swear at your own mother 
 now — my boy who went to Sunday-school as 
 teacher only twelve months back, and liked the 
 work of Bible-teaching too. Don't mind him. 
 Miss Kirby ; he's only crying drunk as usual. 
 This happens every night; if you were going to 
 stay here, you'd get as used to it as I have." 
 
 " I'm not drunk," muttered the son. 
 
 " Oh ! no, of course not. iVbw;," she cried, 
 turning suddenly upon me, with her face as pale 
 as her son's, and her eyes ablaze with a passion 
 fiercer than his own had been, " you can make 
 out why I hate your sister. It seemed to puzzle 
 you a bit — does it still ?" 
 
 " I can't make it all out," I answered. " I 
 may guess at much, but I know nothing." 
 
 ** What does he put on his Sunday coat and 
 his best cravat for, on a week-day like this, the 
 silly Johnny ?" she asked. 
 
 " Don't call me a silly Johnny," muttered her 
 son. ^ 
 
 " What for. Miss Kirby,'* reiterated Mrs. Sim- 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 mons, " but that he fancies himself in love with 
 your sister, and that she's coming to meet him — 
 she who cares about as much for him — as he's 
 worth," she added, with a bitterness that made 
 even Dick Simmons shrink, " or as I care for her, 
 and you know what that amounts to." 
 
 " Yes, I know that," I answered. 
 
 " Ah ! but you don't know how that boy of 
 mine has been served," she cried more fiercely 
 still; " driven the wrong road, from the Sunday- 
 school to the gin-shop ; laughed and sneered at 
 by a flirting, vain, trumpery hussy, who thought 
 she'd try and make a fool of Dick, just to keep 
 her hand in. I didn't think Dick was such a 
 fool as that then, or that a chit of a girl could 
 turn him round her little finger as she did, 
 making game of him all the time. She's turned 
 him into that thing !" she said, her vindictive 
 disparagement again causing her son to writhe 
 perceptibly — " a curse to himself and to his 
 mother, and I wish her dead for it — there !" 
 
 " She has done you no harm, has she f asked 
 Dick. 
 
 *'If this isn't harm, what isf she said.
 
 DICK SDDIOXS. 99 
 
 " What have you made of home ever smce your 
 whining and whinnicking after that girl ? Isn't 
 it all a part and parcel of the wretchedness 
 which has flopped down on us ? Haven't I come 
 to taking money of her sister, rather than 
 starve? You fool ! Take the light and go to 
 bed. You're not fit to sit here." 
 
 " I think I'll go to bed," said Dick, with in- 
 tense gravity. He rose, moved unsteadily to- 
 wards the table, reached a shaking hand for the 
 light, and shambled out of the room, and up- 
 stairs noisily. Mrs. Simmons commenced strik- 
 ing lucifers against the mantelpiece, as her son 
 had left us in the dark by his method of retreat. 
 When she had lighted a second candle, she 
 stooped forward suddenly, and brought her face 
 so close to mine that she startled me. 
 
 " Are you crying ?" she asked. 
 
 "Xo, not crying exactly," I answered. "I 
 am overwrought, I suppose ; this has been a 
 dreadful day to me." 
 
 " Oh, yes ; I suppose it has. But she is not 
 worth crying about, you know." 
 
 " I would rather not mention her name again 
 
 h2
 
 100 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 in this house," I said calmly ; " please don't say 
 anything more about Katie." 
 
 " Don't you want to think of her any more, 
 then r 
 
 " To think of her — yes, and to believe the 
 best of her," I said, dashing away with a hasty 
 hand the tears which had betrayed me; "for 
 she has done no harm to anyone, I am sure. 
 It is not likely that you or your son could un- 
 derstand my sister." 
 
 '* Oh, lor !— oh, indeed I" said Mrs. Simmons, 
 ironically. 
 
 "I will go to my room," I said. 
 
 " All right," said Mrs, Simmons, shortly, " you 
 know where it is." 
 
 '^ Yes." 
 
 " You can take this light," and Mrs. Simmons 
 pushed it towards me w- ith no gentle hand ; " I 
 shall be striking lucifers all night, at this rate." 
 
 When I had bidden Mrs. Simmons good night, 
 and had reached the parlour-door, she said in 
 the same harsh tones — 
 
 •' You've had nothing to eat since I've knowed 
 you. Ain't you going to eat?"
 
 DICK SIMMONS. 101 
 
 " I could not touch anything yet." 
 
 " You'll be ill if you go on like that," she 
 muttered. " I've a biscuit or two that- — -" 
 
 *' No, thank you. Good nigbt." 
 
 " Oh ! good night. Do as you like, it's nothing 
 to me." 
 
 I went up the stairs slowly — they seemed 
 more of a difficulty to mount than they had 
 been — and I stopped to reflect upon the possi- 
 bility of my falHng ill in this house, as Mrs. 
 Simmons had hinted at. 
 
 "I shall be better to-morrow," I said to my- 
 self, assuringly — "better able to get away from 
 Dorset Street. I can't stop here." 
 
 I was shuddermg at the prospect of a long- 
 stay in this uncongenial atmosphere, when Dick 
 Simmons, in his shirt-sleeves, came out on tip- 
 toe to the first landing-place, at which I had 
 arrived. 
 
 " I thought it was you," he said huskily ; " I've 
 been waiting for you." 
 
 " Ha ! to tell me where she is." 
 
 " No. How should I know that ? What 
 makes you think I do T he rejoined.
 
 102 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 " I had a hope that you knew." 
 
 " That's nonsense — I wish I did. But I've 
 been waiting and listening for you." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " To tell you not to mind the old girl down- 
 stairs ; she means well — no one better — but 
 she's an awful temper. You mustn't mind," he 
 added, laying a finger on my arm in his tipsy 
 confidence, " all that she has said about Katie 
 — a berrer girl than Katie does not breathe I 
 Not her fault a bit, she's too high-spirited for 
 anything of the sort. All my fault — 'pon my 
 soul, all my own doing — a silly Johnny !" 
 
 He quoted his mother's animadversion, as 
 though it were an original comment upon him- 
 self, as he backed towards his room, nodding at 
 me gravely. I was glad that he had defended 
 my sister, even in this eccentric fashion ; it set 
 her in a better light, and I read only a young 
 man's folly and a pretty girl's fun. Katie had 
 been always full of fun — God bless her ! — and if 
 all that had been jest for her had been sober 
 earnest for poor Dick Simmons, why, that was
 
 DICK SIMMONS. 103 
 
 Dick Simmons's fault, and no one would be 
 more sorry than Katie when she knew the 
 truth.
 
 104 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 AT HOLLOW AY, 
 
 r WAS ill the next day, just as Mrs. Simmons 
 -■- had prophesied that I should be — so sick 
 and ill, so far beyond all power of my own to 
 leave my bed, that I was weak enough to fear I 
 might die in the thick of the mystery which 
 shadowed the Kirbys. It was a thought that 
 robbed me for a while of the little composure 
 that was left ; it was hard to think of dying in 
 that room, with Mrs. Simmons scolding me for 
 the trouble that I was to her — with no father, 
 no Katie, no Uncle Jef — not a single face that 
 had ever looked kindly into mine. 
 
 But I did not die, and Mrs. Simmons did not 
 scold me. On the contrary, when that lady 
 found me out, after shaking her head and say-
 
 AT HOLLOW AY. 105 
 
 ing, " I told you so " — which assertion appeared 
 to relieve her very much — she came out in 
 such bright colours that they have never wholly 
 faded from me since. They were good wearing 
 colours, such as poor women display at the fore 
 very frequently, when there is a chance for 
 these undemonstratives to " show off." 
 
 Mrs. Simmons was positively kind. She 
 brought me tea and dry toast, and, though I 
 was not grateful at the time, she harassed me 
 into taking them, and, not till that operation 
 was performed, was I aw^are that she had put 
 brandy in my tea. 
 
 " It's the best thing for weakness. There ! 
 catch hold, and finish it." 
 
 "Do you think I shall be better now ?" 
 
 " Yes — presently. Try and sleep a bit again, 
 and don't fidget yourself more than you can 
 help." 
 
 "I'll try and sleep." 
 
 " Blest if you're little more than a child your- 
 self," she said. " How old are you ?" 
 
 "Twenty." 
 
 " I thought it wasn't more. You talk gf
 
 106 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 looking after her indeed — the likes of it ?" she 
 muttered ; " why, she's as old as you are ! And 
 you're precious like her, too. I wonder I didn't 
 see it earlier ; if I had you wouldn't have been 
 here, though." 
 
 " Pray, don't begin again." 
 
 "Never mind — I didn't mean to say any- 
 thing, with you a-laying there — not quite such 
 a brute as that, I hope, though things are going 
 the wrong way, and rile a body dreadful. But 
 there, there, there !" said Mrs. Simmons, rapid- 
 ly, " what's it to you ? — what's it to anybody in 
 a hundred years' time ?" 
 
 She went away, and 1 dropped off to sleep — 
 or rather to a repetition of the dreams by which 
 I had been beset all night, and which had begun 
 in the front parlour of Mrs. Simmons's house. I 
 woke up several times during the day, always 
 in wonderment as to where I was, and who was 
 the thin-faced woman looking down upon me 
 with something in her hands that I was either 
 to eat or drink, and from which I begged hard 
 to be mercifully spared. It was not till the 
 next day, which was Sunday, that I was better.
 
 AT HOLLOWAT. 107 
 
 I was sitting at my window when Mrs. Sim- 
 mons came in, and raised her arms aloft in her 
 surprise at finding me dressed for the day. 
 
 "Come — that's brave!" she said; "but are 
 you strong enough '?" 
 
 " I am only a little weak," I replied, " but I 
 shall not give you any more trouble, I hope." 
 
 "I hope not too," she said; "for you've 
 enough to bear without falling ill. You're sure 
 you are strong?" 
 
 " Yes — quite sure." 
 
 " Then there's a letter — I kept it back last 
 night because you were too ill to be bothered — 
 and it was too late to do anything.'* 
 
 "Oh, why did you do that?" I cried, re- 
 pr(jachfully. 
 
 I opened the letter impatiently. It contained 
 a few formal lines from the City magistrates, 
 informing me that, under the peculiar circum- 
 stances of ray case, an order was enclosed for 
 my admittance to Holloway Prison on Monday 
 morning next, between twelve and one. I had 
 softened the heart of some one in authority, at 
 least.
 
 108 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 " I am very glad," I said. 
 
 " What about r 
 
 I informed Mrs. Simmons of the cause for my 
 exultation. 
 
 " I don't see much to be glad about in that," 
 she answered. 
 
 How the Sunday passed, in my eagerness 
 and impatience to be stirring, to be doing some- 
 thing to break down the barriers by which I 
 seemed surrounded, I hardly knew. I was not 
 well enough to go to church in the morning, and 
 though I tried to read my Bible — as Uncle Jef 
 would have wished me — there came between me 
 and all meditation the expectation of the morrow, 
 and the uncertainty of what that morrow 
 might bring forth. 
 
 I did not see Richard Simmons in the morn- 
 ing. He had not cared to meet me in his sober 
 moments, his mother informed me, but had gone 
 out early, she did know where — she did not 
 care where, she added, with a quick jerk up- 
 wards of her chin. Very likely he had gone 
 away to make the expenses less, now that he 
 was out of work and short of money, she
 
 AT HOLLOWAY. 109 
 
 thought. He was " sacked" last Saturday, and 
 must shift with better people than ever he was. 
 But despite this assumed indifference to his 
 welfare, the mother kept her eyes towards the 
 street, and ran once with alacrity to the win- 
 dow, when she thought that she saw him pass- 
 ing on the other side of the way. Mrs. Sim- 
 mons was clad in a rusty brown silk for Sunday 
 wear, and was altogether neat and tidy. The 
 baby was presentable, and Katie's godchild and 
 I were very good friends by tea-time. I board- 
 ed and lodged with Mrs. Simmons, after having 
 told her that I was short of money, and must 
 presently fall back upon the contents of my box 
 for payment of the expenses that I had incurred 
 in Dorset Street, unless — and here I paused, and 
 she looked at me over the baby. 
 
 " Unless I settle s^ith you now, so far as " 
 
 " I'd rather wait," she answered. 
 
 '• You preferred money in hand when I first 
 came, and T have no right to break your rules, 
 or expect to be trusted, Mrs. Simmons." 
 
 *' I'll try and trust you," she said drily, 
 " though you are a Kirby,"
 
 110 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 I went to church in the evening, and Mrs. 
 Simmons volunteered to accompany me. 
 
 " Once a week I always go," she said, " and 
 my neighbour comes in to mind the baby till I 
 get back again. But p'raps you'd rather go by 
 yourself," she added huffily ; '' you've more the 
 looks of a lady than I have, aod we don't make 
 a pair." 
 
 "I would rather go with you." 
 
 "Dick went ^^dth me once regular, but he's 
 given all that up." 
 
 She repressed a sigh as she went to the door 
 to admit her neighbour, to whose services she 
 had already referred. To the mother's surprise, 
 Dick Simmons had not given it all up, however 
 — there he was sitting in the free seats, grave, 
 quiescent, and attentive. He saw us, and rolled 
 his little grey eyes into their corners at us ; but 
 he did not return to Dorset Street after church 
 was over, fle came in late. His mother and I 
 had expected a repetition of the Friday night's 
 behaviour, but he was as sober as a judge when 
 he returned. 
 
 " Good evening, Miss Kirby. I've had all
 
 AT HOLLOW AY. Ill 
 
 the supper I want," he said to his mother, after 
 a glance at the bread and cheese which had 
 been set asiJe for him. 
 
 " Where have you been, Dick?" 
 
 " For a walk, that's all." 
 
 " I wasn't sorry, Dick, to see you at church 
 again." 
 
 " Ah ! " was the careless reply ; " where w^as 1 
 
 to go r 
 
 He relapsed into taciturnity after this, and no 
 one attempted to disturb him. Once or twice I 
 caught his gaze directed to myself, as if he were 
 studying me, or comparing me with Katie. 
 
 The baby's waihng in the next room having 
 taken the mother to the rescue, he said to me in 
 a quiet, almost a refined manner — 
 
 " Do you intend to make a long stay here, 
 MissKirby?" 
 
 " No — only till to-moiTOw^, I think." 
 
 " Indeed. What do you mean to do after to- 
 morrow ?" 
 
 " I hardly know. I see my father to-morrow, 
 and he will advise me." 
 
 " Your father — at Holloway prison?" he asked, 
 in evident surprise.
 
 112 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 " Yes," I replied ; " I have a hope that he will 
 know my sister's address." 
 
 He looked eagerly at me again, seemed about 
 to speak, altered his mind, and directed his at- 
 tention to all that was left of the pattern of a 
 Kidderminster carpet. He was very thoughtful 
 the remainder of the time that he favoured me 
 with his company. When he said good night, 
 he added, " Remember me to your father in the 
 morning. Miss Kirby," as he went out of the 
 room. 
 
 On that memorable morning when I saw my 
 father first in prison, I caught sight of Mr. Sim- 
 mons's white face watching me from the first- 
 floor window as I went away. He seemed inte- 
 rested in me and my movements, and when I 
 stepped into a Holloway omnibus, I looked 
 round half fancying that he might even think it 
 worth his while, and for some inexplicable 
 reason, to follow me. But I did Richard Sim- 
 mons an injustice, and my new life had already 
 rendered me more than commonly suspicious. 
 
 When I found my way to the prison where 
 City offenders are drafted after their conviction,
 
 AT HOLLOWAY. 113 
 
 I felt my heart sink ominously ; and when, after 
 much critical inspection of me by the warder on 
 duty, I was allowed to enter a little room, whilst 
 the great gates clanged behind me, I felt very 
 much as if I were going to be locked up for good 
 myself. 
 
 In this apartment, bristling with cutlasses and 
 pistols on the walls, my magistrate's order to 
 visit Jonathan Kirby was inspected by the 
 warder, and my name requested to be written in 
 a book that was open for the purpose. That 
 formality having been gone through, I waited 
 until another officer took charge of me across 
 the courtyard, into the great hall, up the stairs 
 trodden by many as forlorn as I was, and into a 
 small room, where I waited for a little while, 
 until the officer re-appeared and beckoned me. 
 
 " You can see him now." 
 
 " Thank you," I murmured. 
 
 I tried to keep very firm, to walk very 
 steadily into one of a series of compartments 
 fenced by wire, and with wire above my head, 
 having before it a second series of compartments 
 to match, separated from each other by a narrow 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 strip of neutral territory, where an officer took 
 his stand, a silent witness of our interview. 
 There was a click of a lock, that seemed to 
 spring back something in my heart along with 
 the wards, and then there entered, with a forced 
 briskness of step, into the compartment facing 
 me, the man I had come to visit, and whom in 
 the streets I should not have recognized — my 
 father with his hair all white as I had never 
 seen it yet, wdth a pinched and sallow face, and 
 an attenuated frame, clad in a suit of grey too 
 big for him — my poor father, God help him I 
 
 He had prepared himself for this meeting ; he 
 had rehearsed the effect in his cell, perhaps, and 
 was more composed than I had hoped to find 
 him. He spoke as if from behind a mask, and 
 there was a convulsive twitching of the muscles 
 of his face that changed him very much, until he 
 recovered himself, and gazed steadily from his 
 cage across at me. 
 
 "Well, Faith," he said, "so you have come to 
 see me, then !"
 
 115 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE PRISONER FOR FELONY. 
 
 T DID not reply at once to my father's salu- 
 -*- tation. It took time to recover from the 
 effect of his appearance — from the shock which 
 the change in him had given me. This old man 
 in the grey suit I had not expected to see ; I 
 had not thought of the change that four years 
 might have brought to him, and yet four such 
 years of mental anxiety and personal shame 
 might have bent the form and blanched the hair 
 of men stronger and younger than he. My fa- 
 ther had never been a strong man, but I had not 
 dreamed of his breaking down like this. 
 
 " You are well, I hope," I stammered forth 
 at last. 
 
 i2
 
 116 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 " Not very well," he answered ; " as well, 
 perhaps, as the rules will permit me to be. The 
 air and the fare are against my getting very 
 strong." 
 
 " Oh !— yes." 
 
 We had not assumed our natural positions 
 towards each other ; it was strange, but it seem- 
 ed to me that four years of separation had even 
 brought about an odd kind of reserve between 
 us, unless it was the presence of the prison 
 warder that checked all natural demonstration. 
 Of the cause which had placed him in prison, I 
 did not like to be the first to speak, and already 
 I saw — or fancied that 1 saw — a desire on his 
 part to avoid it. He would declare presently 
 that he was innocent, and that by some cruel 
 train of circumstantial evidence, telling and 
 forcible but false, he had been brought to suffer 
 for the guilty. 
 
 " How did you leave your uncle ?" he asked 
 in clearer and more precise tones. 
 
 » Well and happy." 
 
 " A little always made Jef happy," he re- 
 plied; and then he leaned against the wire-
 
 THE PRISONER FOR FELONY. 117 
 
 work and coughed violently for a few moments. 
 
 '*! have caught cold in this wretched place," 
 he said to me ; " it's full of draughts, and the 
 early rising at this time of year does not agree 
 with me. Please God, I shall be in the infirmary 
 soon. That is the prisoner's summum bonum, 
 Faith." 
 
 *' Speak English, Kirby," said the warning 
 voice of the official, " and then I can understand 
 
 you." 
 
 " All right, sir," replied my father, deferen- 
 tially; ^^summun honum was no reflection upon the 
 diet, as you probably imagine — it is a Latin re- 
 flection meaning the highest good." 
 
 " I don't care what it means," said the official, 
 bluntly ; " speak English, and take care what 
 you are about." 
 
 I had not liked my father's satire, or the 
 mock politeness with which he had explained 
 himself to the officer. It Avas painful to me, and 
 above all a cruel waste of time. 
 
 " When I started from Natal," I said, "it was 
 with very different feelings from these." 
 
 " Ah ! if you had only waited for my letter —
 
 118 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 if you had not been in a hurry to return to Eng- 
 land —if you had been only more cautious and 
 less precipitate, what a deal of misery it might 
 have saved us both !" he said almost reproach- 
 fully. 
 
 " I should have come to England just the 
 same — I should have been more prepared for — 
 for this — that's all !" I exclaimed ; " but I could 
 not have remained at the Cape, knowing of the 
 trouble that has happened here." 
 
 " Good girl," he said, looking down and pass- 
 ing one thin tremulous hand for an instant 
 across his face, " but what use can you be to me 
 — and what real good can you do ?" 
 
 " Heaven knows that," I replied, " but there 
 is you to think about, and there is Katie." 
 
 " And now there is your misery to be added 
 to our unlucky fate. What is to become of you 
 ^vithout friends and without money ? — what — " 
 
 " Never mind me," I said, interrupting him ; 
 " I have youth and strength, and a trust in 
 God not deserting me. I shall not find all the 
 ways of living closed against me, and friends to 
 help will come forward in good time."
 
 THE PRISONER FOR FELONY. 119 
 
 "There's Herbert Westmair — he promised 
 that he would do the best for you, Faith, that he 
 could." 
 
 " Not a Westraair," I said quickly ; " the 
 Westraairs believe you guilty, father." 
 
 "Ah, yes, so they do," he added, after a fur- 
 tive glance across at me ; " and if you can get 
 on without anybody's assistance, so much the 
 better. I despise these Westmairs as much as 
 you do ; they have not acted well by me, not one 
 of them ; they would not show mercy to an old 
 servant," he cried more warmly ; " they would 
 not overlook one fault, or see one excuse ; they 
 brought me to this with a relentless cruelty ; 
 they had no heart to spare :me." 
 
 " Did — did you really take the money, then ?" 
 I asked. 
 
 I had not believed the reports against him, 
 or had any faith in the justice of his trial. I 
 had only confidence in him, and in the honour 
 of our family, that I had never thought to see 
 crushed underfoot like this. 
 
 He looked down again, and said very slowly 
 in reply —
 
 120 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 " Well, I — I certainly took the money — for a 
 time." 
 
 " Oh, father ! I did not believe it until to- 
 day !" 
 
 " I took the money by degrees, Faith, know- 
 ing very well that I should be able to return 
 it," he continued; "I was as sure of restoring 
 it as of living, when the blow came for w^hich I 
 was unprepared. It was a loan, not a robbery ; 
 the AYestmairs would have had every penny 
 back of that money which they could so well 
 afford to spare, if a little more time had been 
 given me. A week later I should have been a 
 rich man, as I told you — as I wrote to you." 
 
 "In what way?" I said. 
 
 " Oh, don't ask me ; I can't say now — I 
 daren't. But when I come out of this den, 
 there will be a glorious revenge for you and me 
 over these money-grubbing wretches. We have 
 only two years to bear up and keep strong — 
 only two short years, Faith." 
 
 He rubbed one thin hand over the other ; his 
 eyes sparkled, and his face lighted up with a 
 new expression, but I took no courage from his
 
 THE PRISOXER FOR FELONY. 121 
 
 change of manner. I was wholly cast down ; I 
 stood in the darkness, with all my light of life 
 quenched out — a poor woman, who must bear 
 her share of his shame by the closeness of the 
 tie which linked her to him. I did not believe 
 in his future, and could 1 have taken every 
 word to heart, it would not have raised my 
 spirits one degree. The stern fact before me 
 was not to be softened down by any far-off 
 dream of prosperity ; my father was a thief, 
 and there was no excuse for him. 
 
 I could pity him ; I could not understand 
 him. I had come there with the desire of sus- 
 taining him by asserting that I did not believe 
 in his guilt, that I would wait patiently for his 
 liberty, and devote my life afterwards to his 
 comfort, to the proving of his innocence, if it 
 were in any way possible — and now all was over 
 with my fallacy. 
 
 There was more for me to do ; all might be 
 closing in upon me in the valley of the shadow 
 of crime, but I had not fulfilled my mission. I 
 had not forgotten it ; I had kept guard upon 
 the time allowed me for the interview, scoring
 
 122 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 minute by minute by my little silver watch, 
 but there was this great awful stone to roll 
 away first. And it had rolled back upon eveiy 
 hope that I had clung to ! 
 
 " It is only looking forwards — looking up- 
 wards to heaven — that can keep us strong for 
 those two years," I said. 
 
 *'You must not give way, Faith," he replied 
 with alacrity, turning the tables unceremoni- 
 ously upon me ; " you must be brisk, and look 
 about you. Have you written to your uncle ? 
 He might feel disposed to arrange for your 
 passage out again." 
 
 " I shall not return to the Cape." 
 ■ "As you please. In my miserable position, 
 I cannot decide what is best for you. How much 
 money have you got?" 
 
 "Not a great deal," I replied, "but never 
 mind that. Tell me where to find Katie." 
 
 "She has left Dorset Street," he replied; "but 
 I don't know where she is at present. She will 
 write to me when she is settled. She may have 
 written already for what I know. I must not 
 receive letters too frequently ; it is against the
 
 THE PRISOXER FOR FELOXT. 123 
 
 rules. If anything had happened I should have 
 heard." 
 
 " But have you no idea where she is?" I asked 
 eagerly. 
 
 *' Not the slightest notion in the world," he 
 answered. 
 
 "And you are not anxious about her ! I can- 
 not understand that, and she so young." 
 
 " Katie has a shrewd head on her shoulders," 
 said my father, with an easy confidence ; " she 
 is sure to do well. She knows the world, and 
 is not afraid of it. I am far more nervous about 
 you than her, Faith." 
 
 *' I do not see why." 
 
 "Because you do not know the world, my 
 child ; you are not a business woman, or see the 
 right way to make the best of everything," he 
 replied. '* Your uncle has spoiled you for any- 
 thing like every-day work ; I was sure of that 
 by your letters of the last two years, and when 
 I wrote to you to come back, it was to set you 
 above all work for ever." 
 
 " I am in the greatest fear concerning Katie," 
 I said, indignantly ; " I hold it that she is far
 
 124 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 too young to be surrounded by temptations — to 
 be alone, and without one true friend of whom 
 she might seek counsel." 
 
 "Meaning yourself," said my father, with a 
 lurking smile that vexed me, flickering for an 
 instant at the corners of his mouth. " Ah ! Faith, 
 you must be less conceited, if you wish to make 
 your way." 
 
 " Yes, yes, perhaps so," I replied, with im- 
 patience ; " but tell me what you think has 
 become of her? You must have some vague 
 idea, or reason for your confidence in her, and 
 her power to keep strong. 1 left a weak, impul- 
 sive thoughtless girl behind me, when I said 
 good-bye in Dorset Street." 
 
 " She was only thirteen years of age then — 
 her character had not formed — she was a mere 
 child," he said. " My dear Faith, you do not 
 make any allowance for time." 
 
 '* You have your own idea where she is," I 
 reiterated, " and that renders you satisfied. But 
 I am reckless and unhappy." 
 
 " Katie would get a situation at once ; anyone 
 would see that she was a shrewd and sharp
 
 THE PRISONER FOR FELONY. 125 
 
 young woman," my father argued. '* She is 
 clever at many things, would do for a governess, 
 a teacher of music and singing, a milliner — she 
 always made her own bonnets wonderfully well 
 — anything. AVhat does it matter, for two 
 years, how she works, so that she works honest- 
 ly ? She will have the patience to wait for my 
 liberty, and after that I promise both of you 
 independence, not as a dream, but as a solid 
 and substantial fact, upon which you and she 
 may infallibly rely — infallibly !" he repeated, his 
 face lighting up again with the strange sudden- 
 ness that I had before noticed. 
 
 " And you do not know — you cannot guess — 
 where Katie is ?" I urged once more, without 
 heeding his sanguine utterances. 
 
 " My dear girl, I cannot guess at present. If 
 I knew I would tell you. Why should I keep 
 two sisters apart, who would be of mutual 
 service and support to each other ?" 
 
 "Why should you, indeed?" I said, discom- 
 fited. 
 
 " You need not distress yourself about Katie," 
 he said ; " she was partly earning her own
 
 126 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 living — keeping home together with me — before 
 the collapse came." 
 
 " Ah ! no one has told me that before," I cried. 
 
 " She was short of pocket-money, and I was 
 not able to increase it, so she found a few pupils 
 to take elementary lessons in music ; she was 
 quick and clever, and, with all my faults, I had 
 not neglected her education any more than I 
 had yours. I would even suggest, in your case, 
 an advertisement for " 
 
 " Do you know the addresses of any of those 
 pupils ?" I asked eagerly. 
 
 " Upon my word, I never troubled myself 
 about them. I cannot tell you ; perhaps Mrs. 
 Simmons can." 
 
 " No, she cannot, I am afraid. It was not her 
 business." 
 
 "I could not spare a moment to think of 
 anything but my own plans," he said, half in 
 apology; "early and late, before and after 
 business hours, I was paving my way to fortune, 
 Faith." 
 
 Paving his way to gaol, he meant, but I did 
 not say so, though a sense of injury was stronger
 
 THE PRISONER FOR FELONY. 127 
 
 within me than he ever knew. He had not 
 thought much of Katie ; she had been left 
 wholly to herself, poor child ; she had grown 
 callous or indifferent to neglect, and to the sad 
 surroundings which neglect of her had caused, 
 and the result he had termed her knowledge of 
 the world. 
 
 " If I could only find her — only judge her for 
 myself !" I murmured. 
 
 The warder shuffled with his feet, and yawn- 
 ed. I looked quickly at my watch : it was 
 close upon the time to conclude an interview in 
 which I had learned nothing, and by which I 
 had only encountered disappointment. Every- 
 thing was against Faith Kirby when she came 
 back to England ! 
 
 *' I suppose we must say good-bye in a minute 
 or two," he remarked. " You must get acquaint- 
 ed with the rules of the place, and find out when 
 to write, and the days when you will be allowed 
 to see me. 1 wish I knew what you thought of 
 doing," he added, with that strange aggravating 
 concern for me, and unconcern for his younger 
 daughter, that had already irritated me.
 
 128 LITTLE KATE EIRBY. 
 
 " Did you ever hear that Richard Simmons 
 was in love with Katie, and that there was be- 
 tween them a kind of flirtation ? " I suddenly- 
 thought of asking him. 
 
 " God bless me — never !" exclaimed my father, 
 betraying more surprise and interest than I had 
 anticipated; *' I should not have allowed it for 
 an instant. lam astonished — who told you? 
 how could it have occurred that a wretched 
 fellow like Simmons — oh, you must have been 
 misinformed, Faith." 
 
 " His mother was my informant," I replied ; 
 " he does not seek to conceal that he is attached 
 to Katie." 
 
 "Attached, indeed ! And does he think that 
 Katie is attached to him ?" he cried. 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Of course not. He " 
 
 " Time's up," said the warder. 
 
 " One moment !" I cried. " I have a suspicion 
 that he knows where Katie is, or knows some- 
 thing more concerning her than he has ventured 
 to tell me. Is that likely ?" 
 
 " Very unlikely," said the prisoner in reply,
 
 THE PRISOXER FOR FELOXY. 129 
 
 "but there's no telling. Watch liim. Good- 
 bye, child. Keep strong ; remember mine is not 
 a long sentence, and if I ever get out of this it 
 will be well with all of us. God bless you, good- 
 bye." 
 
 " Good-bye." 
 
 The door opened behind me, and I was hurried 
 away. The interview was over, and 1 had 
 profited nothing by it. I had been amazed by 
 many things ; by his trust in Katie and his want 
 of trust in me, by his confession of guilt, and — 
 greatest amazement as well as sorrow to me — 
 by his total want of penitence for the crime 
 which had placed him there a prisoner. If I had 
 been allowed a longer grace, if I could have been 
 with him all day, and so have understood him 
 better, and seen more deeply into his heart — if 
 he had not altered so much in character, as well 
 as in outward appearance — if I could have 
 won his confidence a little more before I went 
 away ! 
 
 It was bright day still when a warder was 
 locking and chaining behind me the great gates 
 through which I had passed, but I did not see 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 130 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 my way so clearly as on the night I first came 
 back. Through the fog and darkness about me 
 then, I had more hopes than one to keep me 
 strong — how many were left me now ?
 
 131 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 STRUGGLING. 
 
 TT has not fallen to the lot of many who cast 
 -*- their eyes upon these papjes, to feel so utter- 
 ly alone as myself in a great city, completely 
 isolated from that kith and kin on whom one 
 naturally relies w^hen the unforeseen strikes 
 hard and beats down. I could not believe in 
 anyone to help me ; I felt that I must help my- 
 self or perish. 
 
 The Westmairs recurred to me once — the 
 offer of Herbert Westmair to befriend me, more 
 than once — but it was these people who had 
 brought about my misfortune, and who had 
 suffered by my father's acts. Better die than 
 go to them — than be in any way indebted to 
 
 k2
 
 132 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 them, I thought, even if they would help me, 
 which, for some reason that I did not gauge, I 
 doubted extremely. The Westmairs had been 
 wronged, but they had been merciless, and the 
 stern man whom I had faced in the counting- 
 house, and who had told me the truth, clearly 
 and coldly, and with no sign of feeling for my 
 sore distress, I already disliked and feared. By 
 my own exertions I must sink or swim. 
 
 I began to strive for myself, after my own 
 fashion, not forgetting Katie meanwhile, and 
 doing everything that lay in my power to find 
 her. Mrs. Simmons knew but little of Katie's 
 pupils — she had heard of them, but had not 
 troubled her head concerning them. Before the 
 piano was sold, one or two " bits of girls" used 
 to take lessons in the first floor fi'ont, my land- 
 lady informed me ; but she had never asked their 
 names, or, she added with a sniff, thought that 
 they were worth much. As for friends in the 
 neighbours, Katie had never had any friends. 
 The same question put to Dick Simmons elicited 
 a similar response — he had been interested in 
 Katie, but not in her surroundings.
 
 STKUGGLIXG. 133 
 
 Still I persevered in the hope of fiuding her. 
 When I was about ray own business, I sought 
 the most crowded thoroughfares, thinking that 
 in some open street or park, or at some window, 
 I should see her fresh young face again. Mean- 
 while I strove hard to fight my way out of my 
 difficulties. I read the newspapers for adver- 
 tisements of governesses or companions, and an- 
 swered all that seemed suitable to my capacity ; 
 I advertised once on my own account, and re- 
 ceived fourteen answers from agents anxious to 
 direct my attention to their respective methods 
 of bringing my requirements before the public ; 
 I called upon one or two clergymen who were 
 polite, and on one or two clergymen's wives 
 who were not ; I endeavoured to discover a Mr. 
 Green who had been a friend of Uncle Jef 's some 
 years ago, and whose name suddenly recurred 
 to me, and I found out that he was dead ; I 
 tried the Missionary Society that had sent out 
 Uncle Jef, but I was not in their line, and they 
 were very sorry, but they really could not do 
 anything for me. There were a few who seem- 
 ed interested, and who promised to write if they
 
 134 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 should hear of anything — but they never heard, 
 or they had very bad memories, poor things. 
 Sometimes I think that had I been less open 
 in my revelation — for my father's story always 
 rose to the surface and set my listeners 
 against me — 1 might have done better and 
 found life easier to confront, even with no re- 
 ferences to back my claims. If mine had not 
 been a fight against time, the chances would 
 have been more in my favour. Uncle Jef would 
 think of something for me when I could hear 
 from him ; and yet he was very poor, and I could 
 not return to Natal, even if he could raise the 
 money, with so much mystery about me. And 
 time was everything. 
 
 By the end of October I had disposed of' my 
 watch and ear-rings — the locket with Katie's 
 hair in it I still clung to — and was looking wist- 
 fully down into the big box of clothes which had 
 found its way to Dorset Street. After the box 
 was empty, what then ? I marvelled very much 
 what then, and Mrs. Simmons marvelled with 
 me if she were in a good temper ; and if any 
 accident had rendered her more fretful than
 
 STRUGGLING. 135 
 
 ordinary, she would say it served me right for 
 leaving a good home in a wild-goose fashion. 
 She was always sorry in her better moods for 
 all that she had said in her worse ; for, after all, 
 she was a good woman whom ill-luck had only 
 ground to a sharp edge. 
 
 All the month of November Dick Simmons 
 was dull and steady, and his mother hoped that 
 he was growing out of his nonsense when he 
 stopped at home every evening, and went to 
 sleep with his head over the back of the chair 
 and his mouth wide open. 
 
 '* I think he is coming round," she said, more 
 than once to me ; " p'raps being out of work for 
 a while won't do him any harm. It's done silly 
 people a sight of good afore this." 
 
 Misfortunes had not come alone to this little 
 house, and Mrs. Simmons, her son, and I, were 
 all out of work together. There was not any 
 prospect of getting work either, and Dick's 
 Sunday suit, of which his mother was some- 
 what vain, went the way of many articles that 
 had come from Natal in my big box, and of 
 many little household gods, the especial pro-
 
 136 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 perty of my cross landlady. How they got to 
 the pawnbroker's — for that was the destination 
 at which they finally arrived — was by a cir- 
 cuitous route, common enough to such shabby- 
 genteel people as we were. We were too proud 
 in our little way to face the pawnbroker our- 
 selves. Mrs. Simmons would not have had her 
 neighbours know, for the world, that she was 
 completely down, and I was ashamed, and 
 dreadfully conscious that I was not so strong- 
 minded as I ought to have been. We did not 
 lose by the employment of a commission-agent 
 — a sharp-dealing, bargain -driving, coaxing 
 woman, who knew every pawnbroker's shop, 
 and the idiosyncrasies of every pawnbroker's 
 assistant, within a mile and a half of Dorset 
 Street, and whose small commission on the 
 transaction repaid her for her trouble, and spared 
 our petty pride. In a poor neighbourhood there 
 is always one of these business-like go-betweens, 
 as amongst the poor there are always a certain 
 proportion too proud to own how low they 
 have fallen, and too. proud or nervous them- 
 selves to cross the threshold of that handy shop
 
 STRUGGLING. 137 
 
 with the three balls, where money is lent on 
 proper secarities, of which the maximum is 
 diamonds, and the minimum flat-irons. 
 
 By the middle of December we were almost 
 facing the worst ; we had made a brave fight for 
 it, and had only just begun to talk of giving 
 up, and of not knowing which w^ay to turn. 
 Dick Simmons was still out of work — dull and 
 patient, if not enterprising — a man whom I did 
 not take to in any great degree, and yet whom 
 I did not wholly dislike. In his sober moments 
 he was amiable and willing ; ready to help his 
 mother by holding the baby, or going out on 
 errands for her; but he was always taciturn and 
 stolid, and not good company. The big box 
 was empty at last ; all my best things had been 
 negotiated for, and the landlord was threaten- 
 ing to seize on Mrs. Simmons's furniture for the 
 quarter's rent due last Michaelmas. We three 
 unfortunates stared each other in the face one 
 evening, and acknowledged that we did not 
 see our way much further along the flinty road 
 which we had pursued together for seven 
 weeks.
 
 .138 LITTLE KATE KIRBT. 
 
 " The sticks will be seized, that's the next 
 thing," said Mrs. Simmons, " and then there's 
 the ' House ' for me and baby, and p'raps Dick." 
 
 " If it wasn't the winter coming on !" said 
 Dick, moodily ; " that's the worst of it, the 
 infernal winter." 
 
 " I don't see how you're to get along without 
 us, Faith," Mrs. Simmons remarked slowly, 
 after Dick had put on his hat and walked out of 
 the house. 
 
 I had become "Faith" to her in these un- 
 lucky days; a common trouble had made us 
 better friends, and when we did not speak of 
 Katie we agreed pretty well together. 
 
 " I suppose they will take me into the House 
 too," I said, with a little shiver. " Do I belong 
 to this parish, or to any parish ? Presently I 
 shall hear from Pietermaritzburg " (which I 
 never, never did !) " and all will be well. 
 But, till then, I must bear up as well as I 
 can." 
 
 " You're not a bad one to bear up, and trying 
 hard and finding nothing don't seem to make 
 you fret much," said Mrs. Simmons ; " that's
 
 STRUGGLTXG. 139 
 
 why you're the first Kirby I ever had a good 
 opinion on." 
 
 " I don't believe that this misery is to last ; I 
 can't believe even now that I am wholly without 
 friends," I said. 
 
 *' How about the Westmairs? " 
 
 I hesitated ; for the first time there was a 
 strong temptation to seek them out, but I re- 
 sisted it. In the face of Herbert Westmair 
 there had been good-nature, and he had proffer- 
 ed help once, but I could not seek charity from 
 him. And the other man, dark and stern and 
 unsympathetic, who had repelled me on that 
 foggy afternoon on which I had met him first, 
 he was only to be thought of with a shudder, 
 as the evil genius who had cast a blight upon 
 my life. 
 
 " No, not the Westmairs," I said ; " if I de- 
 spise anybody, it is those people." 
 
 '' I daresay you're right," murmured Mrs. 
 Simmons. 
 
 " This is the last week that I can pay you 
 anything for board and lodging." 
 
 " Oh, I know," said Mrs. Simmons, shortly.
 
 140 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 " So I'll go." 
 
 "Go where?" 
 
 " I don't quite know ; I must make my case 
 known to the " 
 
 " Yes, yes," said Mrs. Simmons, again inter- 
 rupting me ; " I guess w^hat you're going to say, 
 but don't say it. And — don't go, girl ; don't 
 leave me — if there's any fight left in us, let's 
 fight it out together. There !" 
 
 She ran out of the room with the baby to 
 prevent further argument or thanks on my 
 part, and I remained by the empty fire-grate to 
 shed a few tears over this cross woman's kind- 
 ness, for, from a Simmons to a Kirby, it was 
 more than common kindness, I was sure. It 
 was not wholly for my money that Mrs. Sim- 
 mons wished me to remain, and I did not feel 
 so much alone in the world after that. Odd it 
 was that I had learned to respect this woman ; 
 more odd was it, possibly, that she had taken 
 kindly to me. 
 
 We fought on, and the landlord was a lenient 
 man, who did not put his awful threat of 
 " execution" into efiect. Thank Heaven, there
 
 STRUGGLING. 141 
 
 are some men easy with the rent down the 
 back streets, in the shadows of which the starve- 
 lings struggle I We struggled with the rest, 
 and Mrs. Simmons obtained a little work occa- 
 sionally at neighbours' houses, w^hilst I was use- 
 ful at home taking care of baby. There was 
 no work for me ; my character had not come 
 from Natal, my father was in prison, and there 
 was no one to trust me. I was strong still — 
 I had the vigour and power to work, but the 
 task-master was wanting. The shops were full 
 of young women, and there w^ere hundreds with 
 excellent references waiting their turn to be em- 
 ployed — what could I expect under the circum- 
 stances but Society's cry of '* Stand back ?" 
 
 It was at this time that Dick Simmons took 
 to drinking again. Weak-minded man as he 
 was — with all the slates on the roof not proper- 
 ly adjusted — this w^as no matter of surprise to 
 me, and only a natural disappointment to the 
 mother, w^ho thought poor Dick had taken a turn 
 for the better. That which really surprised us 
 both was, where Dick found the money to get 
 drunk with. Night after night, for one week,
 
 142 LITTLE KATE KTRBY. 
 
 did Dick Simmons return to Dorset Street in 
 the same muddled and benumbed condition of 
 mind, never betraying any hilarity in his cups, 
 but maintaining the same stolidity of aspect, 
 varied now and then by a spasmodic burst of 
 excitement, which had marked his manner the 
 first evening that I had had the honour of his 
 acquaintance. In the morning he would slink 
 from the house, without seeing us if it were 
 possible, but when intercepted on the door-mat 
 by his mother, he would set his back against 
 the wall and argue the case out, taking his 
 stand decisively on the one point that he had 
 not had a drop too much the night before. 
 
 " If you have any money, you should know 
 better than to drink it away now," said Mrs. Sim- 
 mons in her last rencontre with her hopeful off- 
 spring. 
 
 " I haven't a penny." 
 
 " Then how do you get drink ?" 
 
 " I meet a pal or two and they stand treat," 
 he explained — " they don't stand much, not so 
 much as I should, if I was in work," he added 
 with a sorrowful shake of his head over the
 
 struggling: 143 
 
 little meannesses of his acquaintances — " and it 
 knocks me over at times. I was not drunk last 
 night, upon my soul !" 
 
 " What was the matter with you ?" 
 
 " I was miserable." 
 
 " Oh — get out ! " cried Mrs. Simmons ; " a 
 pretty son you are — there, go and drink your 
 hardest." 
 
 " I'm going to try for a place." 
 
 " Try away !" and Mrs. Simmons banged the 
 street-door so closely upon the retreating figure 
 of her son, that that promising young man ran 
 a little way into the road, where he paused and 
 scowled back at the house before turning in the 
 direction of Tudor Street. Later in the day I 
 met Richard Simmons in Fleet Street ; he was 
 not a particularly smart young man to be seen 
 with in the broad daylight — his Sunday suit, 
 we know, having gone the way of many things 
 — but I was shabby myself now. I had made 
 one or two calls at dress-makers' and drapers,' 
 in the hope of procuring needle-work — I shud- 
 der still at these past efforts, and the miserable 
 monotony of failure which invariably followed
 
 144 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 — aod Dick had waited for me outside one of 
 these estabhshments. 
 
 " Any good ?" he asked, like a man interest- 
 ed in my rise in life. 
 
 I shook my head and tried to smile. He had 
 not appeared interested in my efforts before, 
 and I was astonished at his curiosity. I asked 
 him if he had been more fortunate than I. 
 
 "Not a bit. I shall enlist if this goes on 
 much longer," he said, " or if mother nags me 
 much more. As if I had not enough to worry 
 me as it is ! " 
 
 He looked so hard at me that I said — 
 
 " Have you anything more to worry you than 
 your mother has ?" 
 
 He gave vent to a short laugh. 
 
 "I should think I had. Did you see your 
 father at Holloway that day ?" he asked^ after a 
 sudden pause. 
 
 « Yes." 
 
 '* What did he say about Katie ?" he inquired 
 eagerly. "What did he think of it all? 
 Has he heard from her ? Does she write to 
 
 him r
 
 STRUGGLING. 145 
 
 " He has not heard from Katie," I an- 
 swered. 
 
 " He does not know where she is ?" 
 
 ** No more than you do," I said. 
 
 The old suspicion that Dick Simmons knew 
 more of Katie than he had ever cared to own 
 came to me in full force when I had become 
 aware of the effect of my reply. I had not in- 
 tended to startle him in any way, but when he 
 turned very red and looked for an instant in a 
 scared manner at me, the doubts that I had had 
 of him rose again. 
 
 " Oh, Dick !" I cried, " you do know, then ! 
 and yet you keep me in the dark in this 
 way." 
 
 " No — no — don't think that, Miss Kirby," he 
 said. 
 
 He cr9ssed the road and walked rapidly 
 away to avoid my further questioning. He did 
 not return home till a late hour, and it was with 
 the same shuffling tread and fishy eyes that 
 he entered the room and looked round at 
 us. 
 
 " Any news?" he asked, in a thick voice. 
 VOL. I. L
 
 f 
 
 146 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 There was no news. 
 
 " Any letters f 
 
 No, there were no letters. 
 
 These were his invariable questions, after which 
 he would sit down for a few minutes, and after 
 muttering something about " bed," say " Good 
 night," and shuffle his way up-stairs. On this 
 occasion his mother said, after his withdrawal — 
 
 "I won't stand this any longer. I'll find out 
 where he goes, and who makes him drunk like 
 this, if I watch him for a week." 
 
 Watch him I It had been my father's advice 
 that I should do so if I suspected in any way 
 that he was in communication with Katie. And 
 if he knew where Katie was, and was hiding- 
 the secret from me, and to my disadvantage — 
 perhaps to my sister's — surely I had a right to 
 follow one who was taking this heartless part 
 against me. If his actions were straightfor- 
 ward I should do him no harm, and if they led 
 me to Katie I was doing my duty. Still I 
 shrank from playing the spy upon him, though 
 in the mystery about his actions there seemed 
 to be a key to Katie's life.
 
 STRUGGLING. 147 
 
 I told Mrs. Simmons of my suspicions, and 
 what my father had advised me to do, and she 
 said quickly — 
 
 " It's not that foolery ! Dick could not have 
 kept it to himself all this while ; he's not deep 
 enough. You can come with me if you like 
 and see for yourself though. We shall not have 
 to go further than the first gin-shop." 
 
 *' No, thank you ; I would rather not follow 
 him." 
 
 The thought of playing the spy upon Dick 
 Simmons made me blush still. T resolved to 
 leave that task to the mother, relying upon 
 any information which she might be able to ob- 
 tain for me. But when the opportunity came 
 I was less a heroine than I had hoped to be, and 
 Mrs. Simmons was not at hand to take my 
 place. 
 
 The mother and baby were from home when 
 Dick Simmons came in to his tea one Saturday 
 evening, He was not in the habit of taking tea 
 with us now. Most of his time was spent in 
 the streets, looking out for the new berth that 
 
 L 2
 
 148 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 was never available, and his return was a sur- 
 prise. 
 
 " Your mother is out," I said, " but I can 
 make you some tea if you wish." 
 
 ''Is there any left?" 
 
 " A little." 
 
 " Never mind," he said. " I don't want any. 
 I thought some might be about, that's all." 
 
 To do Dick Simmons justice, he was a man 
 who endured privation in order to lessen the 
 housekeeping expenses. Perhaps he even got 
 intoxicated late at night that he might spoil his 
 appetite for the next day, and this drinking 
 bout was part of his theory. Dick Simmons 
 was determined not to have any tea that even- 
 ing, at least. 
 
 " I shall be off again directly," he said. " It 
 doesn't matter. Miss Kirby. Go on with your 
 work. What work is it ?" 
 
 *' It is needlework which your mother has ob- 
 tained," I said. 
 
 "And you're helping her. That's kind of 
 you," he remarked. 
 
 He went np-stairs to his room, from which I
 
 STRUGGLING. 149 
 
 thought he would never come down again, 
 wherein I was inclined to think by degrees, not 
 being used to his eccentricities, that something 
 seiious had happened to hira. It was five 
 o'clock when he had returned ; it was half-past 
 seven when I had grown nervous enough to 
 proceed up-stairs and knock at his door. 
 
 There was no answer, and becoming alarmed, 
 I turned the handle of the door, which was un- 
 locked, and peered into the room. He had only 
 gone to sleep, I thought, with his head upon 
 his arms, which he had folded on the top of the 
 chest of drawers before which he w^as standing. 
 His wiry hair was in close proximity to a 
 candle-flame, quenched to a lurid blot by its 
 neglected wick. As I turned the handle he 
 jumped nervously, knocked a card off the draw- 
 ers to the floor, looked round and glared at me. 
 
 " What is it ?" he exclaimed. " What's the 
 matter?" 
 
 " Nothing, only you did not answer when I 
 knocked, and I was afraid that you were ill." 
 
 " I'm all right. I think 1 must have fallen 
 asleep. I've a knack of dropping off like this."
 
 150 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 I should have withdrawn, apoh)gising for my 
 intrusion on his toilette, had my attention not 
 been directed to that which he had swept from 
 the drawers to the strip of carpet at his feet. It 
 was his nervous stoop towards it which attracted 
 me, otherwise his red eyes, swollen with crying, 
 had not been sufficient to engage my notice. 
 It was a carte-de-visite, that he was anxious to 
 pick up before I should perceive it ; but my eyes 
 were sharp, and the distance from the door to 
 the drawers was not great. The instant 
 afterwards, when it was clutched in his trem- 
 bling hands, I was sure whose portrait it was. 
 All so quick and sudden as it had been, still I 
 was not deceived, and it was Katie's likeness 
 upon which he was turning the key in the top 
 drawer. 
 
 " That is my sister's carte ! " I cried. 
 
 " No, it isn't. You're always wrong," he an- 
 swered savagely. 
 
 I went down-stairs, convinced that I was 
 right, trying to make sure in my own mind of 
 the face that I had seen, being quite sure that 
 it was Katie's face, for all the womanly look
 
 STRUGGLIXG. 151 
 
 that four years had given to it, and for all the 
 fleeting glimpse I had obtained. I was won- 
 dering why Dick Simmons should conceal it and 
 make a mystery of it, when he came mto the 
 parlour with the light in his hand. He was 
 clad in the one every-day suit that was left to 
 him ; but a remnant of past finery, in the shape 
 of his vivid blue stock, had been plastered on 
 his chest and over his soiled linen. 
 
 " I shan't be late, tell mother," he said with- 
 out looking at me, as he turned towards the 
 passage. 
 
 As the door closed, the thought seized me 
 that he was going to Katie, that now by follow- 
 ing him I might solve the mystery which kept 
 her hidden from me. In a minute it was settled 
 in my mind that I would find out where he was 
 going. I was a woman at her wit's-end, who 
 was being trifled with, and kept from true 
 friends and real assistance. I would make sure 
 if he were going to Katie or not. He was 
 keeping something back ; there was a motive for 
 its concealment, and I must find it out. My 
 bonnet and shawl had not been long laid aside ;
 
 152 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 they were still on the sofa in the parlour. I 
 put them on with trembling hands, and in one 
 minute I had extinguished the light, and was 
 closing the street-door noiselessly behind me. 
 It was doubtful at what hour Mrs. Simmons 
 and baby would return, or who would be at 
 home first after a long quest for work, and we 
 were both furnished with latch-keys, the pro- 
 perty of the lodgers, when lodgers were up- 
 stairs. I had been very quick, but I thought 
 that I had missed the one whom I was resolved 
 to follow to his haunts, wherever they might 
 be. There was no sign of Dick Simmons in 
 the ill-lighted street, but I turned into Tudor 
 Street, and hurried along towards Bridge Street, 
 Blackfriars. At the top of the street I saw him 
 slouching on towards the bridge. 1 was acting 
 ungenerously, perhaps, but I was excited, and I 
 was glad that I had come upon his track. 
 
 He passed over the bridge to the Surrey side 
 of London, loitering once by the way to look 
 at the dark river, and then went on rapidly, 
 like a man whose mind was made up, to his des- 
 tination. In my shabby shawl and brown dress
 
 STRUGGLING. 153 
 
 I followed, scarcely able to keep up with him, 
 and thankful when he slackened his pace a lit- 
 tle. I knew that I had growm weaker lately — 
 much weaker — by m^^ trouble in walking as fast 
 as he did, by my weak knees, and an odd internal 
 catching, which brought on fitful attacks of side- 
 ache, that suggested my g'iving up, and sitting 
 on a door-step to recover all the breath which I 
 had lost. But I kept on with him, and after a 
 while he walked less rapidly, and rendered my 
 task more easy. Thus I passed from my still 
 life, ray dead level of hard times, to a life of 
 which I had never dreamed when 1 shut myself 
 out that night in Dorset Street.
 
 154 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE HALL OF HAEMONY. 
 
 T\ E TNG City-born, and four years of my child- 
 '^ life confined to City-streets, the great 
 tract of poor man's land across the bridge was 
 utterly unknown to me. The Surrey side was a 
 terra incognita, and the streets and by-ways of 
 Lambeth a labyrinth wherein I had never lost 
 myself before. I followed Dick Simmons close- 
 ly, keeping so short a distance behind him, as 
 the streets grew full of people, that had he 
 turned he must have seen me. The crowds 
 about that Saturday night did not alarm me ; 
 the elements of poverty and crime were thick 
 enough, a surging mass of humankind ; but, 
 making allowance for increase of numbers and
 
 THE HALL OF HARMOXY. 155 
 
 differeDce of locality, they were the same men, 
 women, and children huckstering* before the 
 same cheap shops, and quarrelling at the doors 
 of the same garish gin-palaces, who were com- 
 mon to the streets in Drury Lane or Holborn. 
 The thoroughfares were of a greater length, 
 and there was more uproar in them — one, I 
 thought, would never end its line of bakers', 
 butchers,' and oil-shops, its row of coster- 
 mongers' stalls and barrows on the kerbstones, 
 its long and grim procession of those who had 
 come out to buy, or sell, or beg, or steal, who 
 choked up the pavement, and filled the roadway, 
 and drifted on, an endless chain of misery and 
 squalor. 
 
 Surely I was mistaken, and Dick Simmons 
 knew nothing of my sister. He could not be 
 approaching Katie in this direction ; her life 
 could not be spent in the midst of the wretch- 
 edness in which I was submerged. I had been 
 wrong ; and this was a purposeless, profitless 
 errand I was engaged in. 
 
 Very few passers-by took heed of me ; I was 
 not well clad, the dark shawl which I had
 
 156 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 wrapped round me was threadbare, and its 
 semblance of gentility had been worn away by 
 contact with rough corners. I was not in con- 
 trast to the general community, but in agree- 
 ment with its tone and colour. One or two 
 policemen looked hard at me, as if they knew 
 the faces in these stifling streets by heart, and 
 mine was an intrusion there. A few mechanics 
 dressed up for a Saturday night's loafing leered 
 at me, and one said, " How are you ?" with an 
 insolent familiarity that would have made me 
 clutch Dick Simmons's arm for protection's 
 sake, had the man not passed on with the 
 tide. 
 
 Dick Simmons was simply taking a walk ; but 
 I did not think of turning back and retracing 
 my way to Dorset Street. I seemed safer with 
 his round shoulders before me. He was in no 
 great hurry ; the goods upon the various stalls 
 distracted his attention ; he stopped five minutes 
 listening to a doleful song chanted by a blind 
 man, who accompanied himself on a violin ; and 
 he betrayed so much interest in the contents of 
 a ready-made clothing establishment, with suf-
 
 THE HALL OF HARMOXY. 157 
 
 ficient gas behind its plate-glass ^nndows to 
 have lighted up a town, that a hook-nosed youth 
 rushed at him with a handbill, and endeavoured 
 by gentle force to budge him through a row of 
 waxen dummies into the interior of the premises. 
 Poor Dick ! I could not help smiling, in the 
 midst of my anxiety, at the tout's mis-spent 
 energy in endeavouring to secure a customer, 
 and at Dick with his hands in his empty pockets, 
 promising, in a patronising manner, to look in as 
 he came back. But I was soon grave again ; 
 and when he had crossed a large street and 
 gone on under a railway arch into a narrower, 
 darker, and denser thoroughfore, having still its 
 crowds of people making for the neighbourhood 
 we had quitted, or coming from it with our- 
 selves, I wondered more than ever w^hen he 
 would attain his journey's end, or turn his steps 
 towards his home. He stopped at last at the 
 doors of another public-house, and applied 
 himself to read some bills pasted on the pan- 
 els, which process having been carefully gone 
 through, he entered the side door of the esta- 
 blishment with an alacritv that took me for an
 
 158 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 instant off my guard. I followed him instinc- 
 tively. No one arrested bis progress, but a 
 man at tbe top of a fligbt of stairs, wbo bad 
 nodded in a friendly manner to him as be pass- 
 ed, beld out bis band to me. 
 
 " Cbeck, miss," be said, seeing tbat I paused 
 in my surprise. 
 
 "Cbeck !— wbat place is tbis, tben ?" 
 
 " Well, tbat's a good un,'' tbe man remarked, 
 as otbers passed me, better acquainted witb tbe 
 rules of tbe establisbment, and put into bis bands 
 little slips of coloured card. I waited patiently 
 for a few minutes, and wbeu tbere was a lull in 
 tbe business of tbe bouse, I said — 
 
 " Is tbis a place of amusement?" 
 
 " I sbould ratber say it was," tbe man replied, 
 eyeing me witb a little curiosity at last. 
 
 " A tbeatre ?" 
 
 " Tbeatre, no. Wbere bave you been brougbt 
 up, my gal, not to know Baxter's Hall of 
 Harmony ?" 
 
 " Wbat is tbat ?" 
 
 Tbe man surveyed me still more critically, 
 tbrust bis tongue into bis cbeek, and said, "Ob,
 
 THE HALL OF HARMONY. 159 
 
 these try-ons Avon't do for me," after which he 
 took no further notice of me. 
 
 I descended the stairs. I had lost Dick Sim- 
 mons, and it was time to go home. I had play- 
 ed the spy for no end or purpose, and he had 
 not been thinking of my sister when he left 
 Dorset Street that evening. And yet I had 
 seen Katie's portrait in his hand before he 
 had quitted home, and there had been in his 
 manner a something that was suspicious. As I 
 went towards the street, I observed a man peer- 
 ing at me through a pigeon-hole in the wall, 
 above which was painted PAY here ; and a few 
 steps further on, I came upon the bills again. 
 This time I stopped to read them, to learn that 
 the place was called the Hall of Harmony, that 
 the sole lessee and director was Mr. Benjamin 
 Baxter, and that the price of admission varied 
 from threepence to eighteenpence. The enter- 
 tainment provided for the patrons of the Hall of 
 Harmony appeared to be of a varied character 
 — singing, comic ballet, negro melodists, contor- 
 tionists, ventriloquists, ballet again, more sing- 
 ing "by a host of professional talent," the
 
 160 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 names of which were in red or black capi- 
 tals : Funny Fred, Sam Wiggins the renowned 
 comic, Tommy Pounce the Colossal, and in- 
 numerable young ladies called respectively Pol- 
 ly, Lizzie, Jenny, and Katie by way of prefix 
 to high-sounding surnames. Katie ! — that dear 
 old name did not even strike me as familiar in 
 juxtaposition with the name of Baskerville, but 
 on my second reading my heart gave a sudden 
 plunge, and I appeared to have struck upon the 
 truth as upon a rock that wrecked me. " Katie 
 Baskerville — her First A-ppearance after her 
 highly successful tour in the provinces, in a round 
 of her most brilliant and fascinating Character- 
 songsT 
 
 Was this the Katie of whom I had been 
 in search so long? — was thfe my little sister 
 whom I had loved so well ? I hoped not : 
 standing in a doorway, hustled by the pleasure- 
 seekers, I prayed not, with quivering lips, and 
 with the tears slowly falling down my cheeks 
 in spite of me ; and yet I had become terribly 
 sure that it was she. 
 
 With a sudden wrench away from the glar-
 
 THE HALL OF HARMOXY. IGl 
 
 ing red letters, I went to the pigeon-hole whence 
 the man had watched me. 
 
 " Has — has Miss Baskerville sung yet ?" 
 
 " She doesn't come on till half-past ten." 
 
 " Indeed — thank yon." 
 
 I went into the street, and back along the 
 pavement, till the cross thoroughfare was reach- 
 ed, and a pawnbroker's shop discovered. I had 
 not a half-penny with me, but the gold locket 
 with Katie's portrait therein lay still on my 
 bosom, and I must part with it to solve the 
 mystery. I did not think of the middle-woman 
 who had been of service to my poor pride in 
 Dorset Street, but I walked boldly down a dark 
 side entry, pushed open a swing-door, passed 
 into a narrow compartment, and laid my last 
 resource upon the counter of the shop. 
 
 " What can you lend me on this ?" I asked, 
 and a sleek young man in a black apron took it 
 up, held it to the light, examined it with one eye 
 shut, and said with a business-like briskness, 
 *' Five-and-six." The bargain was concluded, 
 the ticket was made out, the money was hand- 
 ed across the counter to me, the locket was 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 162 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 transferred, and I could have cried bitterly again 
 as I passed into the passage, hustling by more 
 poverty-driven atoms, in my haste to reach the 
 music-hall at the bottom of the next street.
 
 163 
 
 CHAPTER XIIL 
 
 KATIE BASKERVILLE. 
 
 TN the midst of my excitement, I was very 
 -^ economical. I paid the lowest price for ad- 
 mission to the Hall of Harmony, for two reasons ; 
 the first because I was short of money, and the 
 second because an instinct assured me that I 
 should be safer in the poorest and lowest part 
 of this place of entertainment. Possibly I was 
 right, but after ascending several flights of 
 stone steps, and finally discovering myself in a 
 crowded gallery, very hot, very full of tobacco- 
 smoke, very close to the ceiling, and very far 
 away from the stage, I wished that I had been 
 less studious in the matter of expenditure. 
 
 M 2
 
 1 1)4 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 Still I had good eyes, and to save sixpence or 
 a shilling was a feat worth taking credit for in 
 those strange times which had come about my 
 life. I should at least see this Katie Baskerville 
 from my back seat in the gallery, and should be 
 able to recognise her if the singer were iden- 
 tical with my sister. Oh, to be disappointed, to 
 feel that there was not a clue to her, or her 
 mode of living! oh, never to find her again, I 
 thought, rather than that the discovery should 
 come on such a night, and in such a fashion ! 
 
 I had been brought up by my uncle with strict 
 notions of propriety ; four years of a peaceful 
 and a religious sphere had given me more than 
 a bias towards his own puritanism, and led me 
 to regard the amusements of the stage and of 
 the music-halls as a something very alien to all 
 that was right and God-following. I was sur- 
 veying the prospect with too much horror for 
 my years, as people will do whose lives stand 
 wholly apart from such unreal worlds as these ; 
 but my fears were not groundless even in their 
 most exaggerated sense, and it was a world, 
 God knows ! in which no honest father, mother,
 
 KATIE BASKERVILLE. 165 
 
 brother, sister, could have wished to see the 
 dear ones take a foremost place. 
 
 It was long before I settled down, if it 
 can be said that I settled down at all. I took 
 my seat by the side of a stout old woman and 
 her husband, and was soon shut in by those 
 more late than I — boys let off from office, or 
 shop, or factory, who smoked vile cigars, and 
 swore vile oaths ; and slatternly girls of every 
 age from twelve to twenty — some bonnetless 
 and shawl-less, and more eager for amusement 
 than for food — who leaned upon my shoulder, 
 and those of the next row in general, and 
 screamed with laughter at every miserable jest, 
 or applauded noisily some poor spangled moun- 
 tebank swinging at a rope's end within a hair's 
 breadth of his life. 
 
 The novelty of all this was neither exciting 
 nor amusing, though I had soon become accus- 
 tomed to my position. The amusement de- 
 pressed or scandalised me, and the saddest and 
 most heart-chilling phase of it all was in the con- 
 viction that these crowds of young men and 
 women, and of boys and girls, took an immense
 
 166 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 pleasure in the exhibition and its miserable 
 surroundings. Ah ! I was only a pious little soul 
 from Pietermaritzburg, and the drinking, 
 smoking, riotous world was a new and strange 
 one, which I condemned wholly at first sight. 
 I was in that world, but not of it ; it might have 
 been part and parcel of a dream, had it not 
 been for the sense of grim expectancy at my 
 full heart. I did not pay attention to the stage ; 
 the ballet and its immodest crew of dancers 
 followed the mountebanks, and vulgarists, one 
 of whom, a man more vulgar than the rest 
 particularly earned the favour and applause of 
 the community, who roared out, " Bravo, 
 Pounce ! Bravo, Tommy !" and who was un- 
 doubtedly "Tommy Pounce, the Colossal," a 
 man whose general bearing assured me that he 
 knew his market value, and took his meed of 
 praise as a fitting tribute to his genius. 
 
 1 peered into the pit, and discovered Dick 
 Simmons amongst the faces there. He was 
 sitting with his mouth open and his hands in 
 his pockets, not an attentive observer of all that 
 was going on, but a weary, sleepy-looking
 
 KATIE BASKERVILLE. 167 
 
 being, tired out, as it were, with waiting. 
 Waiting for whom? For Katie, as I waited, 
 perhaps ! The reserved seats close to the stage 
 were as full as more humble parts of the house, 
 but possibly a trifle less respectable, judging 
 by some red-faced women in silks and satins 
 at the tables ; and Simmons was wedged in 
 between two youths of nineteen, who were 
 smoking hard, in defiance of the probabilities of 
 a collapse. When would Miss Baskerville ap- 
 pear ? 1 had glanced furtively at the programme 
 which the stout woman beside me held in her 
 hands, and I felt sure that one or two names 
 succeeding Katie Baskerville had already taken 
 precedence. I summoned courage to address 
 my neighbour. 
 
 " Is Miss Baskerville sure to sing to-night f 
 "Lor' bless you, my gal ! sure as 'ouses," re- 
 plied the stout lady ; " on'y she's singing some- 
 where else, and can't hit it exact to time like." 
 
 " It wouldn't be best for old Baxter if Katie 
 didn't come," added her husband, looking 
 round the ample proportions of his better half 
 at me. " You see if it would, now ! Katie's too
 
 168 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 much of a favourite here already. I don't 
 believe little Tilly Bowfort draws a better 'ouse. 
 You've seen her^ I s'pose ?" 
 
 " No." 
 
 "Ain't you though?" and after a pitying 
 stare at me, full of expressive sjanpathy in the 
 great loss which I had sustained, chequered by 
 some degree of doubt as to the veracity of my 
 statement, he directed his attention to the 
 stage again. 
 
 The stout lady became loquacious after this. 
 Never seen Tilly Bowfort? Well, she was sur- 
 prised. She beat Katie Baskeyweal in most 
 things — in dancing p'raps, and in pluck ; 
 though she could not say anything against 
 Katie's style, take her altogether. She thought 
 they made too much fuss about Katie at the 
 Hall of Harmony, but people did with new 
 favourites — give her theoldonesatany time. Old 
 friends before new, my dear, at any time of the 
 day. They did say Katie Baskeyweal was 
 gohig to marry Tommy Pounce ; but that was 
 all talk, a friend of hers in the scene-shifting 
 departyment told her only yesterday, and
 
 KATIE BASKERVILLE. 169 
 
 capital opportunities of judging he had, being 
 always at the back, you see. She wasn't good 
 enough for Tommy Pounce — did I know that 
 he kept his carridge, and drove from one music- 
 hall to another with a pair of 'orses, ray dear ? 
 As time as she was a-sitting there, she saw Tom- 
 my, only last night, drive his pair of creams 
 from Baxters Hall to the Conwiwial, in the 
 Borough ; and a perfect gentleman he looked 
 every inch of him, with a real flower in his but- 
 ton-hole, such as you can't get at Common 
 Garden under three-and-six, when the weather 
 is as nipping as it has been this blessed w^eek. 
 Had I come alone here ? 
 
 " Yes, quite alone." 
 
 " Ah, I don't hold with gals coming alone to 
 such places as these," remarked the woman; "me 
 and my old man dropping in after Saturday's 
 marketing is different like — but you, now I"' and 
 the broad, soiled face looked wdth a strange wo- 
 manly interest into mine. 
 
 " I am here to find a fiiend; I have never 
 been before," I said quickly, as if it were neces- 
 sary to excuse my presence in some way.
 
 170 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 " Oh ! and he hasn't come, I s'pose ?" 
 " My friend has not come. Who's this ?" 
 The entrance of a pretty girl, in a dress of pale 
 blue silk, was the signal for a shout of welcome 
 from three thousand voices, for a universal clap- 
 ping of hands, stamping of feet, and hammering 
 of sticks and beer-mugs on the refreshment 
 tables, amidst which din the new-comer bowed 
 profusely, put her hand upon her heart, and 
 smiled right and left, above and below her. 
 
 *' That's Katie Baskyweal," said the old lady, 
 joining in the applause along with her husband ; 
 " how nice she do look, to be sure ! She's 
 a-going to sing ' The Kicksy-wicksy Pet,' that's 
 her dress for it ; I heard it two months ago." 
 
 My heart sunk very low, and then com- 
 menced palpitating rapidly — but no, it was not 
 my Katie, unless the distance or the dress de- 
 ceived me : not my sister Katie, of whom I had 
 been in search. I thanked my God that I had 
 not found her here. 
 
 And yet the instant afterwards I was in doubt 
 again ; the features were like hers, and the short 
 white peruke she wore would change her very
 
 KATIE BASKERYILLE. 171 
 
 much, and give her that strange bold look. 
 Was I wrong — was I right ? Four years had 
 passed since I had seen my sister, and the child 
 of thirteen had grown to be a woman, but had 
 she changed as much as that ? Was she like the 
 photograph I had seen in Dick Simmons's hand 
 that evening, and that I had recognised at 
 once ? Yes, like the portrait more than her old 
 self. The tumult of applause and welcome 
 ceased, the band struck up the air ; she advanc- 
 ed a step or two towards the footlights, and 
 began to sing, and then I knew her by her 
 voice. 
 
 " It is she !" I cried, so loudly that the stout 
 w^oman turned and looked into my face, before 
 it was covered with my trembling hands. 
 
 " What's the matter, gal ?" said the hoarse 
 voice in my ears, and it seemed to break upon 
 a sea of murmurings about my dizzy brain. 
 
 "Nothing." 
 
 "You ain't well." 
 
 " No — I am very ill. Pray let me be." 
 
 " Here, take a sip of this," and something red 
 in a flat medicine bottle was slipped into my
 
 172 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 hands, and as quickly and silently returned to 
 her. 
 
 " No — no — please don't talk to me for one 
 moment ; let me think," I entreated in a low 
 tone. 
 
 " I wouldn't bellock about my chap's not 
 meeting me," said the comforter beside me ; 
 " lor ! p'raps he couldn't help it." 
 
 I was silent, but I did not remove my hands 
 from my face. I did not wish to see the stage 
 again, or that figure on it which I had recog- 
 nised. I strove to realise the position, and to 
 act upon it. The clear, sweet, musical voice 
 thrilled through me — but I did not hear the 
 words, or comprehend them ; they might have 
 represented a hymn, equally as well as another 
 sample of the meaningless doggrel to which I 
 'had listened against my will, had it not been for 
 the shout of laughter which followed the ter- 
 mination of the first verse. I looked up then, 
 and clutched my neighbour's arm, rattling the 
 medicine bottle, which was raised to her mouth 
 at that moment, sharply against her teeth. 
 
 " Lorks ! what are you up to now f were the
 
 KATIE BASKERVILLE. 173 
 
 last words I heard, as the vision of my sister, 
 strutting to and fro with a glass to her eye, be- 
 came the last phantom to scare me from the 
 house. 
 
 I was more mad than sane in my new excite- 
 ment, as I tottered down the stairs towards the 
 street. At the wicket where the man had taken 
 the coloured slips of card, I paused for the first 
 time. 
 
 " How can I see Miss Baskerville ?" I said, 
 eagerly. " There is another entrance for the 
 performers. Please be quick and tell me where 
 it is.'' 
 
 " Oh, it's you, is it, agin? You can't see Miss 
 Baskyvill," was the reply, " it ain't likely." 
 
 " I know her. She will be glad to see me," I 
 cried ; " oh, tell me which way she will come 
 out !" 
 
 My eagerness and excitement impressed the 
 man, for he said — 
 
 " You can try at the stage door, if you like. 
 It's round the court — the third door on the 
 left." 
 
 I descended the last flight of stairs to en-
 
 174 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 counter a new and unforeseen obstacle in my way 
 to Katie. A gentleman in a loose grey over- 
 coat, with a cigar in his mouth, was standing on 
 the miry pavement, paying his fare by Hansom 
 cab, and he turned and faced me as I came with 
 swift steps into the street. He dropped his 
 cigar in his astonishment. 
 
 " Miss Kirby— is it you ?" 
 
 It was Herbert Westmair, the man in my 
 father's place, who had intercepted me on the 
 threshold of this awful den. His quick glance 
 took in my white, haggard face, my shabby 
 raiment, and that confusion and even shame 
 which I could not hide from him, and he said, 
 
 " I am sorry, very sorry to find you here. 
 What has happened — what can have happened 
 in so sliort a time ?" 
 
 " Nothing has happened to me but poverty." 
 
 " That comes to the best of us. Miss Kirby, 
 but " 
 
 " It came to me through you." 
 
 I was wild and driven to bay, and scarcely 
 knew what I said. 
 
 " Through me !" he cried.
 
 KATIE BASKERVILLE. 175 
 
 " Through you Westmairs. Through your 
 cousin, who would have no mercy on my father 
 — through all of you." 
 
 I would have passed him, but he stood in my 
 way, graver than I had seen him yet. 
 
 " Miss Kirby, this is unjust, and 1 scarcely un- 
 derstand. \Yill you tell me first what has 
 brought you here ? and will you suffer me to 
 tell you, in all sincerity, what kind of place this 
 is?" 
 
 " I know what place it is," I cried ; " let me 
 get away from it and you. How dare you stop 
 me!" 
 
 " You are mistress of your own actions, Miss 
 Kirby," he said, more gravely still, as he stood 
 aside to allow me to pass, " but I am none the 
 less sorry to meet you under these circum- 
 stances." 
 
 I did not understand him, then, any more 
 than he had understood me. When I did, I felt 
 my cheeks burning at his implied reproof, at his 
 implied objection to my choice of amusements. 
 Did he think, did he dare to think, that I had 
 gone there for distraction's sake ? He who had
 
 176 LITTLE KATE KIRBT. 
 
 entered the very place of which he had warned 
 
 i\.n instant afterwards, and he had passed 
 from mj hot brain. I had turned into the dark 
 court, and was groping my way towards the 
 professional entrance of the Hall of Harmony.
 
 177 
 
 CHAPTEK XIV. 
 
 TOMMY POUNCE. 
 
 npHE stage-door or artists' entrance was not 
 -*- difficult to discover. There was a lamp 
 burning, above it, and the ballet-girls were 
 issuing from it : three-fourths of them shivering 
 and ill-clad, and a few in seal-skin jackets and 
 pork-pie hats — a jaunty crew weighed down by- 
 finery. 
 
 There were many good-nights given to a 
 snuffy little man boxed up in an office on the 
 left of the door, and there were not a few sharp 
 glances in my direction as I entered. 
 
 " Oh, it's too late for her," I heard one girl 
 say; "as if we hadn't made up the Christmas 
 lot ever so long ago !" 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 178 LITTLE KATE KIEBY. 
 
 The man in the little office regarded me with 
 distrust and disfavour, after the custom of his 
 kind. 
 
 " I wish to see Miss Baskerville before she 
 leaves," I said. 
 
 " Miss Baskerville's busy, and can't be both- 
 ered." 
 
 " She will see me — she will be glad to see 
 me," I answered quickly. " I am her best 
 friend." 
 
 " Oh :" 
 
 The door-keeper appeared puzzled. 
 
 " ril send up your name, if you like,i' he said 
 reluctantly, " and hear what she says." 
 
 " Can't I see her without that ?" 
 
 " I should think not." 
 
 " I am afraid of the shock — we have not met 
 for so long a time." 
 
 " I don't think it will answer," he said ; then 
 he raised his voice, and called '' Jem !" and a 
 boy of seventeen or eighteen came tumbling 
 down a spiral iron staii'case towards us. 
 
 " Jem, when Miss Baskerville comes off tell 
 her that a young person wishes to speak to her
 
 TOMMY POUN'CE. 179 
 
 for a moment, if she has no particular objection. 
 AVhat name shall I say, miss ?" 
 
 " Faith Kirby, from Pietermaritzburg." 
 
 " Faith Kirby, from Peter — marry — some- 
 thing or other. Look sharp, Jem." 
 
 One or two people came in whilst I waited ; 
 a few more ladies of the ballet tripped away ; a 
 sulky-looking man in a rusty-black velveteen 
 coat, and two snuffling children, all comforters 
 and caps, descended the staircase. 
 
 " I'm off, Jenkins, " said the man, leaning 
 over the half-door after a sidelong glance at me 
 in the usual professional way. " Til shake 
 hands with you, old feller, and say good-bye, 
 too." 
 
 «' Oh — ah," said Jenkins, rising with not too 
 much alacrity, and shambling across the little 
 room, " you're going for good to-night, ain't 
 you ? Sony to say good-bye, Amos." 
 
 The men shook hands. 
 
 " I'm not sorry," resumed Amos, in the same 
 aggrieved tone. " I on'y wish the guv'nor may 
 get as good a lot, as up to time, and liked on'y 
 
 n2
 
 180 LITTLE ELATE KIRBY. 
 
 'arf as well. There, I say 'arf as well, Jenkins, 
 and you may tell him so from me." 
 
 " I'll drop him a hint," said the office-keeper, 
 in a tone that implied the very reverse of his 
 promise. 
 
 " He's going in for the Salviatinis on Boxing- 
 night," said the man, his npper lip — and a very 
 thick upper lip it was — really and absolutely 
 curling with scorn, and curling so much that I 
 could have counted every tooth in his head — 
 " and T wish him joy on 'em. They're not 
 worth their salt " — in a husky whisper — " the 
 old 'un can't even throw a flip-flap properly, 
 s'elp me." 
 
 " That's a bad look-out," said Jenkins, 
 quietly. 
 
 " Will you have a drain with me, old feller ?" 
 
 " No, thankee. I can't leave yet awhile." 
 
 " Good night, then." 
 
 " Good night. I daresay I shall see you 
 back." 
 
 "I don't know as you will," said Amos. " I 
 don't know as I'd come back after the orful 
 failure those Sals will make of it, I don't know
 
 TO^kDlY POUNCE. 181 
 
 as double the money will bring me back — you 
 see, now." And, with many expressive nods, 
 Amos, followed by his boys, whom I had seen 
 as the Spanish Constellations half an hour ago, 
 took his departure down the court. Presently 
 Jem re-appeared, staring at me as at an object 
 deserving of his entire attention. 
 
 " Oh, if you please, Miss Kirby, will you step 
 into the green-room and wait for Miss Basker- 
 ville ? And please say nothing about anything,''' 
 he added, with emphasis, " until she comes. She 
 will be very glad to see you after her encores. 
 You're to be sure and wait." 
 
 " What did she say ? How did she look 
 when you mentioned my name ?" I could not 
 forbear inquiring in my eagerness. 
 
 " She sat down, and shook like a haspern," 
 said Jem. " I thought she was a-going to 
 faint." 
 
 " Show the young lady upstairs, Jem," said 
 Mr. Jenkins, and I followed the call-boy up the 
 iron staircase, and past a corner of the stage, with 
 people standing at the wings ; where, beyond 
 them, in the glare of the gas-jets, I saw my
 
 182 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 sister Katie, dressed as a servant-maid, I fan- 
 cied, before we went up a second flight of the 
 staircase, and entered the green-room. 
 
 At the same moment, as the door of the room 
 closed behind me, I became aware that I was 
 not alone, and that a sandy-haired,closely-shaven, 
 bull-necked man of six or seven and twenty was 
 standing with his back to the fire, and his elbows 
 on the mantelpiece, in a somewhat inelegant 
 attitude. He did not move as I entered, though 
 he regarded me critically and with some 
 wondering interest, after the fashion to which 
 I had been subjected from all the employes of 
 the establishment, so far as I had gone. I re- 
 cognised him as the individual whose coarse 
 singing, offensive demeanour, and general vul- 
 garity had disgusted me, and raised the whole 
 house to enthusiasm. It was Tommy Pounce, 
 the Colossal — the great music-hall singer, who 
 had sung his last ditties that night, and was 
 standing with his back to the fire, in all the 
 glory of private dress — a sight not vouchsafed 
 to the common herd, and for which prospect, I 
 believe, he thought I should be thankful.
 
 TOMMY POUNCE. 183 
 
 There was a certain amount of good looks in 
 the man, but of a low type, and devoid of the 
 slightest trace. of refinement ; he was above the 
 middle height, and expensively got up, having 
 a plentitude of velvet trimming to his coat, a 
 set of jewelled waistcoat-buttons, the heaviest 
 of gold watch-guards, half a dozen rings on his 
 fingers, a diamond collar-stud, a green satin 
 scarf with bars of yellow satin crossing at right 
 angles, and an ivory skull with diamond eyes 
 by way of breast-pin. It was a strange thought 
 to come across me at that moment, and with 
 my heart aching as it did ; it was born of his 
 general appearance, and my last attempt to 
 raise a loan, perhaps; but I wondered for an 
 instant what he would realise at the pawn- 
 broker's in the next street, with all those adorn- 
 ments thick upon him. There was a long 
 gold-mounted whip behind him, also his pro- 
 perty, but this I did not take into consideration 
 till he removed it from the mantelpiece and 
 flipped his highly-varnished boots. 
 
 I was afraid of his addressing me, and I took 
 an old letter from my pocket and feigned to be
 
 184 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 interested in it, but Pounce the Colossal was in 
 no hurry to obtrude his conversation upon me. 
 He trifled with his whip, he drew a little diagram 
 upon the ceiling with it, he sportively lashed at 
 some paper flowers in a vase upon the centre 
 table, he whistled to himself, finally he replaced 
 his whip on the mantelpiece and went slowly 
 through his scales, being particularly dissatisfied 
 with one note low down in his register. 
 
 Suddenly he spoke to me, and, though my 
 heart beat nervously, I found sufficient courage 
 to reply and check the familiar tone with which 
 I had been sure from the first he would address 
 me. 
 
 " Waiting for anybody in particular, my 
 dear?" 
 
 "Sir?" I replied, interrogatively, looking him 
 down, coldly and steadily, as it is in the power 
 of all modest women, thank Heaven, to look 
 down the offensive familiarity which will at 
 times unfortunately encounter them. 
 
 " I was basking if you were waiting for any- 
 one in particular," he said, in a difiierent tone. 
 
 " I am waiting for Miss Baskerville."
 
 TOMMY POUNCE. 185 
 
 " Oh, little Bask J, eh?— she'll be off in a few 
 minutes. I think they'll let her off," he added, 
 " on this occasion with four songs." 
 
 I resumed the reading of my letter, and Mr. 
 Pounce, after carefully studying me, sat down, 
 nursed one leg upon the knee of another, and 
 sang softly to himself, like a man who was 
 never tired of the sound of his own voice. 
 
 The door opened, and I turned eagerly 
 towards it, to be disappointed by the sight of a 
 second gentleman, short and thick, and middle- 
 aged, who spoke with a slobbery accent, kept 
 his hat on, and had an astonishingly dirty face. 
 
 " By George, Pounce ! they won't let Katie 
 off to-night," he cried ; " she's had another call, 
 and didn't want to respond, but they will have 
 her, and she's in again." 
 
 " How many times does that make, guv'nor V* 
 asked Pounce. 
 
 " Six times. Thank my stars, I said nothing 
 about hencore money," said the proprietor of 
 the Hall of Harmony, rubbing his hands 
 together. 
 
 " Six ! It's too much — it's infernal nonsense,"
 
 186 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 remarked the Colossal, who had been recalled 
 four times, and now felt himself aggrieved. 
 
 " That gal's worth fifty pound a week, but 
 she don't know it, Pounce," said the other, 
 digging his favourite comic in the ribs, who 
 caught his hand, and gesticulated towards 
 me. 
 
 *' Eh — who?" asked the proprietor, audibly* 
 
 Some information was imparted to him, and 
 he came bowing towards me, saying — 
 
 " A friend of Miss Baskerville, madam ?" 
 
 " Yes," I answered, " a great friend, I 
 hope." 
 
 " She will not be long. I am Mr. Baxter, the 
 lessee." 
 
 "Are you?" was my quiet answer. 
 
 " A lessee who is proud of the name of Miss 
 Baskerville upon his bills. You may tell her 
 that, if you like — not as from me, for I never 
 pay compliments to people's faces ; it sounds 
 too much like soft-sawder, you understand, 
 ma'am. Pounce, my dear boy," clapping his 
 dirty hand into the hand of the Colossal, " that 
 last song is a gem of yours. I'm proud of it,
 
 TOMMY POUXCE. 187 
 
 and you. The people take up the chorus 
 famous. They give it voice, and hollering 
 makes them thirsty. Don't let the Manchester 
 have it — their band's sure to spoil it, and put 
 you out ; upon my soul, they are !" 
 
 " Yes, it's a stunning good song," said Pounce, 
 in assent, but he said not a word about exclud- 
 ing the Manchester from the benefit of it. 
 
 "I'd stand another quid if you'd keep the 
 Manchester out, Tommy," said Mr. Baxter, on 
 whose mind the song had evidently made a deep 
 impression. 
 
 " I should like to oblige you, Baxter, my boy," 
 said Pounce, in a plaintive tone, " but I can't 
 sing hexclusive songs ; it ain't the fair thing on- 
 me to do." 
 
 " Just as you please. Will you have a glass- 
 of wine ?" 
 
 "I don't mind a B. and S." 
 
 *' B. and S., if you like — anything," he said, 
 touching the bell. " Are you waiting for Katie 
 too, Tom r 
 
 " Yes, I'm going to drive her as far as her 
 door."
 
 188 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 " What, in the trap I" 
 
 " She won't mind. She says it will be good 
 fun." 
 
 ** Nonsense!" 
 
 The door opened, and Jem appeared. 
 
 *' Jem, bring up two brandies and sodas — 
 quick." 
 
 "Yes, sir — and oh! if you please," turning to 
 me suddenly, " will you step into Miss Basker- 
 ville's room now ?" 
 
 I followed him with alacrity. Another turn 
 of the spiral staircase, and along a dusty pas- 
 sage choked with properties, and then I was 
 before a door, on which my sister's assumed 
 name was inscribed in Roman capitals. 
 
 My guide knocked, and the voice I knew so 
 well now said, " Come in." 
 
 I turned the handle, and entered with falter- 
 ing steps and swimming eyes ; and my sister 
 Katie, the girl long lost to me and strangely 
 found, rose in her last stage-dress and came in her 
 tinsel glitter towards me with arms extended, 
 and her face full of joy and sorrow. She took 
 me to her breast as though, like my father, she
 
 TOMMY POUNCE. 189 
 
 thought that I was the one who needed conso- 
 lation most, and kissed me many times. 
 
 " My poor dear Faith, how glad I am to see 
 you I " she exclaimed.
 
 190 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 A sisters' meeting. 
 
 "PvESPITE all the strange surroundings of 
 -*-^ mj sister's life, of which the reader per- 
 ceives I had taken too exaggerated a view — 
 seeing the worst in them, and fearing the 
 worst from them — I was glad to clasp Katie to 
 my heart again. For an instant 1 forgot 
 everything save that she was in her rightful place 
 — that we were together once more, after all 
 the difficulties in the way — and that it was her 
 face looking into mine, with much of the old 
 love upon it that I was assured would never die 
 away. Then the truth came swiftly back upon 
 me, and I murmured —
 
 A sisters' SrEETIXG. 191 
 
 " Oh, Katie ! — why have you taken to this 
 dreadful life ?" 
 
 "My dear little goose, it's not dreadful," she 
 answered, *' it is an honest mode of living, and 
 I am forced to live. I'll tell you about it pre- 
 sently — you must tell me of yourself to begin 
 with. You came back from Pietermaritzburg 
 before the letters reached you telling you to 
 stop — I did not think of that — before the news 
 of father's disgrace followed that nonsense of 
 his, which deceived us both. What have you 
 been doing— when did you come ? — oh, my good 
 gracious, child ! why are you dressed like 
 this?" 
 
 " I found my father in prison, and you away 
 from the old home — and there was nothing left, 
 Katie, but to wait for the friends who never 
 came to help me." 
 
 " And you waited till it came to poverty — 
 I see — I know," said Katie, indignantly ; " what 
 a shame! — what a struggle yours must have 
 been, without courage to face the world, and 
 with your worldly knowledge based on Uncle 
 Jef's old-fashioned notions — mv dear, dear
 
 192 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 Faith, why were you in such haste to meet this 
 misery?" 
 
 " I believed in the good news," I answered, 
 making no reply to Katie's estimate of my 
 powers, and thinking again how like it was, in 
 its way, to my father's ideas conveyed behind 
 the wire grating of his cage. 
 
 " Yes, exactly," said Katie ; *' but I wish that 
 you had not been in a hurry, although the 
 hurry has brought you to me. We need not 
 part again, and we will be such true friends one 
 to another. Oh ! Faith, I have wanted one true 
 friend so much." 
 
 " You will trust in me, then V 
 
 " To be sure I will." 
 
 And once more her arms were round me, and 
 her kisses falling on my cheeks. 
 
 " You will let me advise you for your good ? 
 — tell you what I think is right and what is 
 wrong? — teach you, in my simple earnest way, 
 even as I used to do in Dorset Street." 
 
 " Oh, I know right from wrong, and the 
 mighty difference there is between them," was 
 the quick, half laughing answer ; " and as for
 
 A sisters' meeting. 193 
 
 advice — vrhy, if I take any, I shall probably take 
 yours. "We will advise each other presently — 
 not now." 
 
 '' But this life— this awful life— then " 
 
 "Yes — yes — you have said that before," said 
 Katie with impatience, " and we will argue that 
 out in a few minutes, and," she added with a 
 little emphasis, " in a few words. Wait here, 
 dear." 
 
 She passed into a small inner room, and be- 
 fore I had time to ponder over our meeting, she 
 was back again, clad in a heavy black silk dress, 
 and shawl, with a dark hat and feather sur- 
 mounting her brown hair. 
 
 "I have learned the art of dressing rapidly, 
 Faith — and that for a lady is a great accomplish- 
 ment. And now, my dear little serious mission- 
 ary of a sister," she added, laying her gloved 
 hands on my shoulders and approaching her 
 bright face close to mine, •' you must defer all 
 talk of this life until we are at home — not tease 
 me about it here." 
 
 " I will not tease you at all, if I can help it." 
 " That's a dear Faith," and she kissed me 
 VOL. I.
 
 194 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 again before she withdrew her hands from my 
 shoulders. " You will come straight home with 
 me, of course. You look tired and ill — you must 
 have suffered a great deal." 
 
 " A great deal of anxiety concerning you, 
 and " 
 
 " And that being over, you will be yourself 
 again — another Kirby not wholly trodden un- 
 derfoot, " she said, suddenly compressing her 
 red lips together ; " a something like myself — 
 strong, resolute, and able to fight your own 
 battle." 
 
 " I think I can do that." 
 
 " That's well." 
 
 She regarded me very critically for a few 
 moments, then she said, 
 
 " You are like rae, I should say — a great deal. 
 Neither of us is a giantess," she said, laughing, 
 " but we are petite, and sweetly genteel ! " 
 
 I tried to smile at her high spirits, but it was 
 a poor attempt, and her life and light depressed 
 me, despite my efforts to the contrary. She 
 was satisfied with the sphere into which she had 
 plunged, and more than satisfied with the popu-
 
 A sisters' :meetixg. 195 
 
 larity which her singing and acting had attained 
 for her. That was my greatest trouble, and my 
 busy brain was already scheming how to lure 
 her from it. 
 
 ** Give me your address, Katie," I said, " and 
 1 will be with you early in the morning." 
 
 *'In the morning?" 
 
 " Yes ; I must return to Dorset Street to- 
 night." 
 
 " Why — you are not at the old house?" 
 
 " Yes, I am." 
 
 " With that snappish Mrs. Simmons — ah ! she 
 has told you some fine stories about me. How 
 I detest that woman !" 
 
 " A good woman at heart, Katie," I replied ; 
 " don't be hard upon her. She did not forget 
 me when I had no more money, but gave me 
 the shelter of her home just the same." 
 
 " You must have got over her very nicely 
 somehow," replied Katie. " I could never agree 
 with her for five minutes together. But you 
 shall not go back to-night — I say, Faith, that 
 you shall never, never leave me again — 
 there!" 
 
 o2
 
 196 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 "Mrs. Simmons will sit up all night for 
 me. 
 
 " Write her a letter and tell her that you 
 have found me. There's pen and ink — I'll see 
 some one is sent with it directly — you need not 
 be afraid of that. Why, Faith," perceiving that 
 I hesitated, " you can't like me as you used, if 
 you want to run away from me so soon." 
 
 " I will write," I said. " I can see Mrs. 
 Simmons in a few days — I shall be one less in 
 Dorset Street, and that will be a relief now." 
 
 " Tell Mrs. Simmons that I haven't forgotten 
 the rent," said Katie, " and that she shall have 
 the whole of it on Monday. I have been going 
 to send it many times, but something has always 
 stopped me. What a shocking thing rent is. 
 Faith — and especially back rent !" 
 
 " Ay, it is." 
 
 " There ! write your letter, and come to me 
 in the green-room. You can find your way 
 back?" 
 
 " Are you going there ?" 
 
 " Yes — such fun ! — Mr. Pounce will drive us 
 home in his trap — his advertisement trap I call
 
 197 
 
 it — I promised to go with him, and he is wait- 
 
 ing." 
 
 " I will not go with him — I don't like that 
 man," I said quickly. 
 
 '' Hush, hush ! my ' dresser' is in the next 
 room," said Katie, lowering her voice and be- 
 traying some alarm at my frank speaking ; 
 " neither do I, for he's the most conceited ape 
 that ever breathed, but it is my business, my 
 existence, to please those people who can ad- 
 vance my interests. Pounce is the great man 
 — he is coining money with his impudence and 
 his coster's voice — he will take a music-hall of 
 his own soon — and I must not make that man 
 my enemy. Try and understand that my 
 position is not secure enough to show my likes 
 and dislikes. I wish it were, I would surprise 
 a few of them." 
 
 '' But, Katie— is this life " 
 
 " There, there ! when we get home — not 
 now," she cried, interrupting me, " it's a com- 
 pact signed and sealed between us. Oblige me 
 in everything, and follow my lead in every- 
 thing, until that home is reached, my dear.
 
 198 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 It's for the best, or I would not ask you — 
 really." 
 
 " Very well," I answered with a sigh. 
 
 When she had left me, I wondered if her will 
 had mastered mine, if her strong urgent nature 
 had got the better of my resistance, or I had 
 only given way a little to oblige one whom I 
 had not seen for years before this meeting. It 
 mattered not how it was — the times were 
 changing ; I had found Kate Kirby, and should 
 be of service to her. She had spoken of the 
 need of one true friend, and of looking forward 
 to that friend in me — that was a good beginning 
 of our lives together. Presently this strange, 
 artificial, enervating life we should leave behind 
 together too — I prayed so even then again. 
 
 I wrote my letter to Mrs. Simmons very 
 hastily, perhaps very incoherently, for I was 
 anxious to be quit of the Hall of Harmony, and 
 at home with Katie, facing the tiTith. I told 
 Mrs. Simmons that I had discovered my sister, 
 and that she had insisted upon taking me home 
 with her — and I added that I should call in a
 
 A sisters' meetixg. 199 
 
 day or two, and relate the facts. I should have 
 added Katie's address had I known it, but she 
 had left the room without apprising me, and I 
 did not care to date from the Hall of Harmony. 
 I said nothing of the means by which 1 had 
 found Katie — I left all to the next meeting — 
 and for Mrs. Simmons's past kindness I dashed 
 oflf a few lines of grateful thanks, feeling that 
 the Dorset Street struggles were over for good, 
 and that a new Kfe had commenced, as full of 
 mystery and uncertainty as the past had been, 
 dating from the day of my return to England. 
 Having placed the note in the envelope, I left 
 Katie's dressing-room and found my way to the 
 apartment which I had recently quitted. 
 
 Katie was waiting for me, with a glass of 
 sherry and a biscuit before her — the gift of the 
 liberal Mr. Baxter — and Mr. Baxter was relating 
 an anecdote to her and Mr. Pounce, with much 
 unction and gesticulation, the latter gentleman 
 listening condescendingly, and playing with his 
 whip again. 
 
 " This is my particular friend. Miss Kirby,"
 
 200 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 said Katie — " one whom 1 have been waiting 
 years to see — the best little woman in the 
 world." 
 
 I did not admire her style of introduction ; I 
 was sm'prised at her making no allusion to our 
 relationship, but I had promised her her own 
 way to-night in everything. 
 
 Mr. Pounce bowed stiffly, as if he had never 
 seen me before, and Mr. Baxter shook hands and 
 blessed me, and expressed his great delight at 
 making the acquaintance of any friend of Miss 
 Baskerville's ; and then Kate rose and said that 
 she was ready, after first impressing Mr. Baxter 
 with the fact that she wanted some one to take 
 a letter to Dorset Street immediately — a wish 
 which that gentleman promised to see carried 
 out mider his own personal superintendence. 
 We left Mr. Baxter with the letter in the green- 
 room, and descended the spiral staircase. 
 Katie turned and spoke to me with her finger 
 on her lip — 
 
 " I did not say you were my sister, Faith." 
 
 " No— why not ?" 
 
 " I thought you might not like it," was the
 
 A sisters' meeting. 201 
 
 reply, " that you might be ashamed to own that 
 you had a sister here." 
 
 ''Oh, Katie I" 
 
 " It isn't a reproach, but sober earnest, child." 
 
 We were passing the door-keeper's den again ; 
 the Colossal Pounce swaggered by without any 
 notice of Mr. Jenkins cowering by the fire, 
 Katie said " Good evening," and he answered 
 " Good evening, my lady," as though she were 
 a countess ; and then we sallied from the Hall 
 of Harmony into the dark court and the narrow 
 street beyond, where Mr. Pounce's equipage was 
 blocking up three-fourths of the roadw^ay. 
 
 "Here he is! Hurray, Tommy Pounce! — 
 and, oh ! here's Katie Baskywill with him !" — 
 " Here they all are !"— " Who's the gal in 
 brown 1" were a few of the salutations that met 
 us, and that brought the colour to my cheeks, 
 as we passed through a crowd of unwashed 
 tatterdemalions towards the drag, where, to my 
 astonishment, two men in livery were standing. 
 It was a grand show for so poor a neighbour- 
 hood, which might well have been stirred to its 
 depths by the display. The comic singer was
 
 202 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 a king on this side of the water, and the extra- 
 vagant game he was playing might possibly be 
 worth the candle. They talked of Tommy 
 Pounce's trap in the vicinity of all the music- 
 halls where Pounce bawled night after night his 
 meaningless trash, and it was evident how great 
 a man he was by the rush of the "ragged 
 fringe " to catch a glimpse of him. The police 
 pushed back the most forward of the crew, but 
 touched their helmets respectfully to Tommy. 
 The shopkeepers left their counters, and came 
 to the door to see him off; the boys cheered a 
 little, a few derisively, as if satire had come 
 early to them, and they knew Mr. Pounce's 
 worth better than he knew his own. 
 
 " What a nuisance this is ! — haven't you seen 
 enough of me inside ?" said Pounce, in loud 
 tones of protest — his breast swelling with grati- 
 fication for all that. 
 
 *' We haven't been in, Tommy," a shrill voice 
 replied. 
 
 " Then go in on Monday and make up for it." 
 
 There was a general laugh at this. What a 
 funny, free-and-easy, jolly fellow this great man
 
 A sisters' meeting. 203 
 
 was I Xo stuck-up airs, no holding himself 
 aloof from his admirers. 
 
 " Give us a horder then, old bloke," shrieked 
 another gamin^ at whose legs Tommy cut play- 
 fully with his whip, as he ascended the box, 
 followed by one of his grooms. The second 
 had already installed us in the interior of the 
 trap — far too roomy, and breezy, and conspicuous 
 a vehicle for the night — and had taken his place 
 on the back steps. The horses pranced and 
 shook their heads, and then were off, dashing 
 along mthout any regard for the lives and 
 limbs of Her Majesty's subjects, who were 
 thick in the murky streets. A parting cheer 
 from the boys made me lower my head quickly 
 with confusion, although I tried hard to conceal 
 any signs of my distress from Katie. She must 
 not know how weak I was, and how all the 
 strangeness of that night had unnerved me. 
 
 I felt her hand press mine. 
 
 *' This is not very elegant, Faith," she said, 
 in a quick whisper, " but it's a great compliment 
 from the Colossal, and it suits my purpose to be
 
 204 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 complimented. Still, for all that, he's an igno- 
 rant cur, and I hate him !" 
 
 "Are you all right there, ladies?" asked the 
 ignorant cur suddenly, looking over his shoulder 
 at us. 
 
 " Yes, thank you, Mr. Pounce," replied Katie, 
 in a soft and pleasant voice ; *' and not at all 
 nervous. How beautifully you drive !" 
 
 " Yes, I manage them pretty well now," he 
 said, after bringing us against a kerb-stone with 
 a force that jerked the groom off the steps, who 
 quickly recovered himself, and came back to his 
 post w4th his hat covered with mud — "but I 
 shall drop the game soon. Baxter likes it, and 
 pays extra for it, but I'm blest if it's a good 
 thing for my throat." 
 
 "Ah! you must take care of that," said 
 Katie, demurely. 
 
 She made a wry face towards me at the same 
 time, but I could not smile yet; my head 
 seemed to bend lower and lower in spite of me. 
 All was so unreal about me still, so full of de- 
 ceit, and devoid of any honest instinct, that 1 
 felt that I should never understand this world
 
 A sisters' JklEETIXG. 205 
 
 into ^vbich I had followed Katie, or be happy 
 again until I bad led ber from it, and from 
 tbe many dangers by which it was hemmed 
 
 m.
 
 206 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 KATIE S H03HE. 
 
 OUR way lay over one of the bridges, and 
 towards Charing Cross. In the broad 
 thoroughfares we attracted considerable atten- 
 tion, being out of place with the hour and the 
 season ; people stopped to look after us, and to 
 wonder, as well they might, what was meant by 
 it. If there were any bystanders to enlighten 
 the most curious, why, so much the better for 
 the Hall of Harmony and the Colossal Pounce — 
 it was a step nearer immortality. Pounce did 
 not speak much during the drive ; he had his 
 horses on his mind, and they were fresh and 
 restive ; but when we were proceeding up St.
 
 Katie's home. 207 
 
 Martin's Lane, he gave the reins to the groom 
 beside him, and coolly clambered over to us. 
 
 " I say, Katie, you'll turn up to-morrow at 
 old Grew's party ?" he asked, as he sat down 
 facing her. 
 
 "No, I shall not be able to come," said Katie. 
 
 " Oh ! confound it, I hope you Tsdll," Pounce 
 continued ; " it's the only day we can get a 
 little talk together, and there'll be lots of people 
 you'll like to meet." 
 
 " I am very sorry, but I am engaged." 
 
 " You've got over that nonsense about Sun- 
 day parties now ? It's all very fine for peo- 
 ple to talk of Sunday as they do, who can 
 meet any day in the week they like — ain't it, 
 miss i 
 
 This was addressed to me, and I said — 
 
 " I have been brought up to regard Sunday 
 with some degree of reverence." 
 
 " Oh I have you ? Well — you're lucky," he 
 resumed, after considering my answer for a 
 moment. " I was brought up like it too, but in 
 my profession I found it impossible to study 
 that game."
 
 208 LITTLE KATE EIRBY. 
 
 I was about to answer him again, with all 
 the fervour born of my fonr years' apprenticeship 
 to Uncle Jef, when I felt Katie's hand pressing 
 my arm, and I stopped for her sake. I had no 
 hope of making a convert of Tommy Pounce — 
 and, after a moment's reflection, no desire to 
 argue with him. He turned to Katie, and ex- 
 pressed a wish that she would think better of 
 it, and look in at Grew's, if it were only for a 
 minute — everybody expected her, and a good 
 engagement might come of it, he added sig- 
 nificantly. Katie was firm on this occasion, and 
 said *'No," very decisively; and Mr. Pounce 
 looked for an instant aggrieved, and finally 
 crestfallen. 
 
 "I made sure that you would come, or I 
 wouldn't have gone near 'em — upon my soul I 
 wouldn't," he said in conclusion ; then he sprang 
 up and launched so formidable an oath at the 
 driver for going the wrong way, that it curdled 
 the blood in my veins, and made me shrink 
 closer to my sister. 
 
 '' Didn't I tell you that I wanted to go to 
 Long Acre — what are you passing the place
 
 KATIE". S HOME. 200 
 
 for, you infernal fool ?" he roared ; and he con- 
 tinued to curse his coachman until we turned 
 and drew up before a big block of buildings in 
 the locality referred to. 
 
 " Here ?" I said. 
 
 " Yes — my nest is up there on the second 
 floor, Faith. 
 
 " ' On a second floor, for ever more, 
 
 You must live and die with Katie.' " 
 
 " I wish you had said as much to me," said 
 Pounce, gallantly ; and Katie laughed, and told 
 him not to be foolish ; and so the bad temper 
 or the disappointment of the Colossal vanished 
 away at parting. Katie let herself in with a 
 latch-key after we had bidden Mr. Pounce good 
 night, and closing the door behind us, she led 
 the way up a broad but indifferently clean 
 flight of stairs to her own room. A light tap 
 at the first door on the second-floor brought a 
 smart-looking servant-maid to admit us, and I 
 was in Katie's home at last — a bright, well-fur- 
 nished suite of rooms, wherein Katie bustled to 
 and fro with all her old vivacity. 
 
 VOL. I. P
 
 210 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 " Now, Faith, before supper you must tell me 
 of yourself," she said, " and afterwards you may 
 lecture me. That is a fair division of labour, 
 before we talk of what is to become of us." 
 
 If her light vein jarred upon me, I was glad 
 to witness it. She was happy — the family 
 trouble had not affected her seriously ; she had 
 shaken it off along with her old name. And 
 yet perhaps it was my presence that gave her 
 new life that night, for as she passed from one 
 room to another, she would touch my shoulder 
 lightly, or rest her hand upon my hair, saying 
 more than once, " I am so glad to see your dear 
 old face — I am not alone now, am I ?" 
 
 The maid was sent on various errands con- 
 nected with supper for an extra and unlooked- 
 for personage, and Katie was busy herself see- 
 ing that the table was laid completely to her 
 satisfaction, making numerous inquiries about 
 me and my past life, as she tripped about the 
 room. Before the supper was over — and an 
 expensive supper of cold fowl and ham from 
 the pastrycook's it proved to be, startling my 
 sense of economy a great deal — I had related
 
 KATIE'S HOME. 211 
 
 all the news of my return to London, the dis- 
 appointment which had met me at the offices of 
 Westmair and Co., the life in Dorset Street, 
 where I had struggled against misfortune, and 
 looked round vainly for my sister. Katie lis- 
 tened with attention, but did not make many 
 comments upon my narrative. In those parts 
 which told of my trouble, she stretched forth 
 her hand and touched mine in sympathy ; when 
 the name of Dick Simmons was mentioned, she 
 smiled and shrugged her shoulders ; and when 
 I had concluded, she sat silent for a while, con- 
 sidering the whole position, and taking her cue 
 from it. 
 
 " It will be my turn now," said Katie, " when 
 Mary has gone to her room for good. See — I 
 put off the evil day as long as I can. Philoso- 
 phy, Faith — not cowardice." 
 
 We were sitting before the fire together at 
 last, and I was thinking what a graceful and 
 beautiful girl she had grown, — with only seven- 
 teen years of life to her credit, I did not con- 
 sider her a woman, — when she said suddenly, 
 
 " You are not one-and-twenty yet, Faith." 
 
 p2
 
 212 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 " No— not yet." 
 
 " Not of age," she added lightly, " so you 
 must not rebuke too severely one who never 
 took kindly to advice. In the language of the 
 law, we are both infants, dear." 
 
 " Oh ! but I am three years and a half older 
 than you," I said, " and have a right to advise 
 you." 
 
 " I don't question the right, only the neces- 
 sity," replied Katie; "for of the two, who knows 
 more of life, do you think ?" 
 
 *' Of this life — you," I answered with a sigh. 
 
 "Very well," she said quickly, "and that is 
 my sphere, wherein I have to fight my way for 
 myself and — for you." 
 
 " Oh ! not for me," I cried. 
 
 " You see danger in my profession. Faith — I 
 do not disguise the fact that there is danger, 
 but not to me," she said. " I faced the world 
 so early, father left me so completely alone, 
 that I have been for years on self-defence. 
 There ! you need not fear for me." 
 
 " You like it — you are happy in it — and oh ! 
 you are so young !"
 
 Katie's ho:me. 213 
 
 " Sometimes I think that I am a little old 
 woman in disguise," she answered ; " I am so 
 calculating as to ray chances, so very mercenary 
 and hard ! No — not very young, Faith." 
 
 She looked older as she spoke, with her large 
 hazel eyes fixed upon the firelight. 
 
 " What made you think of this?" 
 
 " What was I to think, when the truth sud- 
 denly came out that father had been taking the 
 Westmairs' money? I was as alone in the 
 world as you were yesterday, and there was 
 no one to offer me," she added, with bitter- 
 ness, " a life more respectable. I had a voice 
 — one of my pupils had not wholly failed in this 
 profession that alarms you — I was young, and 
 not particularly a fright — I had always had my 
 nerves under control, and I thought of the 
 hated music-halls as an escape from drudgery." 
 
 " Well?" 1 said breathlessly. 
 
 " I asked my old pupil to allow me to sing 
 for her benefit, as a Miss Baskerville from 
 America " 
 
 " Oh !" I exclaimed. 
 
 " Courage ! in misfortune, as in war, every-
 
 214 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 thing is fair. I had immense confidence in my- 
 self," she said, speaking with volubility, " and 
 was determined to succeed by every means in 
 my power. I fought hard. Faith, and made 
 my first appearance with success — think of that ! 
 success in these sceptical times — and was engag- 
 ed from that night at a fair salary. I dare say 
 if 1 had failed I should have killed myself," she 
 added, with a momentary contraction of her 
 forehead, " but I did not think that I should give 
 way. It all seemed very easy to me." 
 
 " Easy ! — at your age, and with your inexperi- 
 ence ?" 
 
 " I knew that I could sing and dance — and a 
 h'ttle voice and a great deal of impudence make 
 a tremendous way with the patrons of these 
 places. Look at that wretched and illiterate 
 Pounce who drove us home ; he would make 
 his fortune if his love of display did not lead 
 him to spend his money as fast as he earns 
 it. I tried comic singing, comic dancing, any- 
 thing to attract applause from people whom a 
 little pleased, and the result is that I am enabled 
 to earn my own living. I was a professional
 
 KATIE'S HO:\IE. 215 
 
 from America — not a debutante — and Tilly and I 
 played our cards well, and deceived the wise- 
 acres for once. I know you don't like deceit — 
 neither do I, for deceit's sake — but it was my 
 one hope, and I could not shut my eyes to it 
 and starve, as Faith Kirby would have done." 
 
 " Yes," I said thoughtfully, " I would have 
 preferred to starve, Kate." 
 
 '* I think you would, but I am calculating, 
 vain, bold — T long to resist trouble, not succumb 
 to it," she cried ; " I can't lie down and be 
 trampled upon by the rush of a crowd too busy 
 to pick me up and ask what is the matter with 
 me." 
 
 She was speaking excitedly, with her little 
 white hands clasped, and her eyes flashing with 
 that fire at her heart which fluttered the bosom 
 of her dress ; and I could but own how stronger 
 and more persevering a nature hers was than 
 mine, even if in owning it I sorrowed for it. More 
 than that, I confessed to myself that she was an 
 enigma to me — that I did not understand her — 
 and that in her misdirected power and energy I 
 saw a great deal to deplore. I was bewildered
 
 216 LITTLE KATE KIRBT. 
 
 that night ; she over-mastered me — I could not 
 see mj way for her good, or my own — I sat 
 baffled by her side. 
 
 " Ah, Faith !" she said, steahng her arms 
 round my neck after a long silence, and draw- 
 ing my head upon her breast, as I had drawn 
 hers before I went away, " you think that I am 
 a very scheming and ill-principled young woman 
 — I am not that, I hope, although I know one 
 so much better than myself that I can hardly 
 look into her eyes. You think that I am happy 
 in this life, but I have only forced myself to be 
 content with it." 
 
 *' Would you be glad if I followed in your 
 steps ? I have a small voice of my own too — I 
 used to lead the chapel-singing in Pietermaritz- 
 burg." 
 
 I said this to try her, and she answered 
 quickly and warmly, 
 
 " No — God forbid ! You could not stoop to 
 win your way — you are nervous and would die 
 of shame at the first sight of a half-drunken mob 
 before you — you are not funny, and I am !" 
 
 She uttered these last words with more bit-
 
 KATIE'S HOME. 217 
 
 terness still, as though the relation of her story 
 had deepened her intensity of feeling. 
 
 "I shall never be happy again, Kate, till I 
 have rescued you from this." 
 
 " You rescue me !" she said in a pitying tone ; 
 " ah I how is that possible ?" 
 
 " Till you have rescued yourself then — oh, 
 Katie ! you \vill try to do that ?" 
 
 " I am trying," she replied — " that is, when I 
 can escape this life I will. I despise the people 
 by whom I am surrounded, them and their lies, 
 and lives. But the old question will come 
 uppermost. What can I do f ' 
 
 It was a question that puzzled me, and I was 
 silent. She noticed my sad looks, as with her 
 natural quickness she appeared to notice every- 
 thing, and said quickly — 
 
 "The story is ended, and we shall not dwell 
 upon it again. The life is not such a horrible 
 one as you fancy — there is attraction in it — and 
 everybody is in too much of a hurry to interfere 
 with you. Do you understand me ?" 
 
 ''I think I do." 
 
 "And now shall we say Amen to all the past, 
 Faith?"
 
 218 LITTLE KATE EIRBY. 
 
 " Not yet." 
 
 " Not yet !" she echoed in surprise ; " why, 
 we are not going to begin again, I hope." 
 
 *' No ; but there is much that perplexes me — 
 much that has been said against you." 
 
 *' You mean that Mrs. Simmons has said the 
 worst of me that she could — oh ! never mind 
 her." 
 
 " So good and true a woman is she in many 
 things, Kate, that I have been sorry for her 
 hard words respecting you." 
 
 " What does she know of me V cried Kate, 
 indignantly. " I deceived her about the rent a 
 little, because father deceived me — and when 
 she spoke her mind, I spoke mine in return." 
 
 " Oh, Katie ! she lays the blame of her son's 
 drunkenness, the great change that has come to 
 him, at your door." 
 
 "That is like a mother," said Katie. "I 
 couldn't help it if that weak-minded fellow 
 chose to pay me attention. I kept him in his 
 place as long as I could, considering that we 
 were living in the same house, but I didn't wish 
 to make him an enemy as well as his mother.
 
 KATIE'S HOME. 219 
 
 A selfish calculation, but I am calculating, and 
 I liked poor Dick for many things. He knew 
 my profession and never told anybody — and, 
 though he has haunted me night after night 
 wherever I have sung, he promised me when I 
 went aw^ay to keep my secret always, and he 
 has done so. If he had betrayed me to his 
 mother, I should have had her persecuting me 
 for arrears." 
 
 "He knew all, then — and yet he saw that my 
 anxiety concerning you was killing me." 
 
 " He never speaks to me — he hasn't done so 
 for months. I told him that if he talked any 
 more nonsense I should hate him, and that if he 
 were silent I would meet him some day and be 
 friends with him, just as we used to be." 
 
 I thought of the first meeting in the fog. 
 
 " And you intended to keep that promise ?" 
 
 " Yes," replied Katie, *' some very long day 
 hence, when he had cured himself of all his 
 maudlin sentiments. He is very foolish. He 
 spent half his wages following me about, until 
 I got him on the free list of some of the places 
 at which I sing. He was grateful, it bribed
 
 220 LITTLE KATE KIRBT. 
 
 him into silence, and I was left in peace." 
 
 " What a study all this has been ! " I said. 
 
 *' I found it hard to save money — harder to 
 part with it to pay father's debts," said Katie. 
 " Something was alway turning up to rob me 
 of that which I had put by — either a dress that 
 I fancied, or some one wanting money of me to 
 stave off a claim ; but it has been always on my 
 mind to pay Mrs. Simmons, and I have made 
 many efforts. Give me credit for them, Faith. 
 I began to save again when I was in the pro- 
 vinces, and next week she shall have her money 
 — there ! What are you brooding upon now ?" 
 
 " How to get you away," I answered. 
 
 " What, still ! after you have asked me to 
 save myself, as the task was beyond you ? Why, 
 Faith, I have to think of you first." 
 
 " Not yet— not to-night." 
 
 " My self-possession, self-assertion, worldli- 
 ness, amaze you ?" she asked. 
 
 " Yes," I replied frankly. 
 
 " There is a great deal of show in it," she said 
 in a whisper, as if she were afraid that her maid 
 should hear her and betray her. " I try hard to
 
 KATIE'S HO:\IE. 221 
 
 be worldly; that is, I scheme and plot for and 
 against many things, for rivals, detractors, 
 and calumniators are on every side of me. I 
 fight hard battles with adversity, and win many 
 of them ; but I am very weary of this, for all 
 ray talk, my dear.'' 
 
 It was her turn to lay her head upon my 
 breast, and let me soothe her there. She look- 
 ed at last like the child whom I had left behind. 
 
 " I wonder what would have happened had I 
 never gone away," I murmured. 
 
 " Why did you go ?" she asked, in a low tone ; 
 then, before I could reply, she started from my 
 arms, and dashed a tear or two from her eyes, 
 as if ashamed of the weakness. 
 
 '' There is one way out of this life !" she cried. 
 
 " What is that ?" 
 
 " For some one to marry me — some poor fool 
 of the Dick Simmons class of brain," she said 
 scornfully, " who, full of my imaginary virtues, 
 and attracted by my voice, or style, or face, 
 should fall in love with me. Some one like 
 Dick, only handsomer and richer. Actresses 
 and singers have their admirers and silent wor-
 
 222 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 shippers, and I am not without them. That 
 bouquet was sent to-night from some one who 
 haunts me as Dick has done — some one who pays 
 me pretty comphments. You see, instead of a 
 worldly woman for a sister, you have one very 
 childish and romantic." 
 
 ''Are you laughing at me, or is this sober 
 reality?" 
 
 " Neither ; only a foolish dream, Faith," she 
 answered quickly. " There, it vanishes away !" 
 
 She sprang up, and shook her hands in the air, 
 as though she shook away a fancy born of folly, 
 and flitted about the room again, dismissing 
 tacitly the one great subject with which her 
 heart and mine were full. I did not know then 
 that she had dismissed it for ever, that for once 
 and all she had told her story, listened to my 
 weak arguments, and overpowered me with her 
 defence. When I re-approached the subject it 
 was in her room, and she was jesting as plea- 
 santly as if no*"trouble at her heart were heavier 
 than the thistledown. She stopped me very 
 quickly. 
 
 " We are not going to talk of this any more,
 
 KATIE'S HO^IE. 223 
 
 until you or I can change it, Faith," she said — 
 " never any more." 
 
 It was a firm, fair face into which I looked, 
 and though I rebelled against the interdict I 
 did not dispute it. I was glad to be at rest, to 
 feel that I had found my darling, to be convinc- 
 ed by my own sanguine nature that, whatever 
 might be the constitution of her world, or of its 
 innumerable temptations, I was once more a 
 friend at her side, and that she was glad to 
 have me there.
 
 BOOK II 
 
 THE SISTERS. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 227 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ANOTHER BEGINNING. 
 
 fT\0 say that in sharing Katie's life, or in 
 -*- taking my place in Katie's home, I ever 
 settled down, would be a mis-statement of the 
 facts. There was no settling down in this 
 unreal sphere, for there was no becoming used 
 to it. If I felt myself growing with every day 
 more powerless to act, I felt none the less the 
 impracticability of reconciling myself to all the 
 vanities by which I was surrounded. I do not 
 seek to convey the impression that I was a 
 very religious girl, or that I was as perfectly 
 right as Katie was completely wrong. I was 
 a woman of many faults, Heaven knows. My 
 religion was a second-hand one, modelled on 
 Uncle Jef's — a religion that did not make much 
 
 q2
 
 228 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 allowance for the contrarieties of our poor 
 humanity, and was in its way narrow and asceti- 
 cal. Probably it was based also on a very 
 good opinion of myself, for had I not my vani- 
 ties also in the early days of my return to 
 England ? I thought that I must be right in 
 many things, and I had the impression that people 
 would own I was right, and act as I wished 
 them, after a careful deliberation on the matter 
 of my argument. Therein I was deceived, as 
 might have been expected from the outset. No 
 one thought of me much ; the few who did — 
 my father and Katie — considered me a helpless 
 kind of young woman, requiring much support 
 and kindness ; of my power to influence others, 
 or to turn others to my way of thinking, I had 
 no outward and visible proof. Katie was affec- 
 tionate and good-tempered, but firm ; she 
 would not listen to my reasonings ; on the 
 night we first met, she had answered me, and 
 there was an end of it. When things could be 
 altered in any way, or by any means, then 
 would be the time to give up the present life ; 
 but till the opportunity presented itself, it was
 
 ANOTHER BEGIXXIXG. 229 
 
 no use making her unhappy. She would not 
 starve for a theory ; she was earning her own 
 living ; when there was a higher mode of fulfil- 
 ling that important mission, she would not be 
 blind to the advantage of adopting it. Mean- 
 while, let her be. 
 
 Not seeing my way ahead, all being impene- 
 trable, I did not preach to Katie on the moral 
 disadvantages of her profession. I was not " a 
 worry ;" I could only watch anxiously for 
 something better in the future, and pray that it 
 might take us presently from the miserable little 
 world which I could not help despising. 
 
 With that world I could not mix. It was on 
 all sides repellent to me, and though I general- 
 ly accompanied Katie from one music-hall to 
 another, I made no friends or acquaintances, 
 and I kept to my sister's dressing-rooms until 
 it was time to leave, shuddering at her cos- 
 tumes and hating her profession with every 
 hour of my life. The people who seemed her 
 friends, and who called her " Katie dear," were 
 my especial abhorrence, disguise the fact as I 
 might for Katie's sake. There were good, bad,
 
 230 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 and indifferent in their midst, the indifferent 
 predominating ; but I distrusted all of them, 
 and saw danger to Katie in their acquaintance. 
 They seemed to live solely for the applause of 
 the crowd; they sang, danced, and grimaced 
 for it, and in theu' poor conceits they consider- 
 ed it the praise of the great public. The hoot- 
 ing of a mob of boys and girls, of half-tipsy 
 clerks and men about town, was the sweet in- 
 cense of adulation for which they strove with an 
 eagerness that was remarkable, deplorable, and 
 yet so natural ! The more I looked round me, 
 the less I was surprised at my sister's success. 
 Katie was a clever actress — not a genius, but 
 she had a power of conceiving character, and 
 was gifted with a sweet young voice that might 
 have been trained to nobler uses and higher suc- 
 cesses — and those by whom she was surrounded 
 were, for the most part, vain and ignorant people, 
 with abilities of so common an order that even 
 mediocrity took high honours amongst them, 
 and made itself popular by sheer force of con- 
 trast with the incapable. 
 
 Katie studied hard. I had not been many
 
 ANOTHER BEGINNING. 231 
 
 days with her before I was surprised at her 
 indefatigabihty ; at the house she would prac- 
 tise her songs at the piano, and rehearse her 
 characters before the cheval glass in her bed- 
 room. 
 
 " This sort of thing generally leads to the 
 stage, Faith," she condescended to explain ; 
 " the best of us drift off to the legitimate bur- 
 lesque." 
 
 " Is that your ambition ?" I asked sadly. 
 
 ''My ambition is to rise somehow," she 
 replied decisively, "and I think that I shall 
 succeed. Have I not two to care for now ?" 
 
 And here her arms were round me in her 
 natural impulsiveness. 
 
 *' Oh, Katie !" I said, returning her caress, 
 " that will not be for long. This is only my 
 halting-place, until I recover breath to fight my 
 second battle. I must not be dependent upon 
 you, and upon this life," 
 
 " How proud you are !" cried Katie. *' ^\Tien 
 you are rich, I will not mind being supported in 
 the least. You and I, Faith, for each other." 
 
 " I hope so — always."
 
 232 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 Perhaps I was not so sanguine concerning 
 that idea as I had been only a few days back. 
 I did not see how to support Katie. I was de- 
 termined that Katie should not support me long 
 by singing at a music-hall. That had become 
 a shame which kindled the colour in my face 
 with every passing word concerning it. I 
 analysed the newspaper advertisements every 
 morning still, answering a few, whilst Katie 
 shrugged her shoulders at my efforts. 
 
 " I know what unprofitable work that is," 
 she said ; " and, my dear Faith, where are your 
 references ?" 
 
 " They will come presently from Pietermaritz- 
 burg." 
 
 "No one will believe in Pietermaritzburg — 
 and meanwhile ?" 
 
 " Meanwhile I vouch for part of my story, and 
 ask for time to prove the rest." 
 
 *' You are wasting more of that material than 
 you are likely to have granted you," said Katie, 
 drily. 
 
 " I would not mind a situation at a milliner's ; 
 I think that I might work my way there."
 
 ANOTHER BEGINNING. 233 
 
 " Work your way into your grave, you mean." 
 
 " I have an idea of opening a school." 
 
 " Schools take years to establish," replied my 
 
 sister. "When I have saved some money — and 
 
 I am going to save tremendously — you shall 
 
 hear of my plans." 
 
 " Tell me what they are now I" 
 *' No — not yet," she answered laughingly. 
 I was surprised at the extent of Katie's 
 income, when she had informed me one day of 
 the sum realised by her singing nightly at three 
 establishments. There was enough and to 
 spare, though she was not coining money as 
 rapidly as Tommy Pounce was. 
 
 " Everybody tells me how cheap I am at the 
 price," she said, " but no one sees that I am 
 feeling my way — paving the ground for higher 
 salaries, and larger letters in the bills ! Pre- 
 sently I will be terribly extortionate, Faith ; for 
 the more that is earned, the sooner I am quit of 
 the profession." 
 
 " Ah, you say that to please me," I cried. 
 " No ; I dont intend,'' she added with emphasis, 
 " to be Katie Baskerville all my life ; I keep my
 
 234 LITTLE KATE KIRBT. 
 
 eyes open — nothing escapes them ; I am a hor- 
 rid little lynx at heart." 
 
 " But " 
 
 " But we have given up argument about it," 
 she said. " It is understood that a big stone 
 is set over it, until you or I can roll it away. I 
 am a woman of business." 
 
 In many respects she was business-like. She 
 answered her letters with despatch ; she made 
 her engagements in a smart, business-like way, 
 and entered them in a small pocket diary, neat- 
 ly ruled and lettered for the purpose. She was 
 always full of bustle and life, a clear-headed, 
 clear-sighted, worldly little woman, who I began 
 to think would have succeeded in most things 
 on which she had set her heart. But she was 
 not all that I could have wished, and I was 
 thankftil that I was at her side, capable in one 
 direction, at least, of exerting some small influ- 
 ence. For instance — a fortnight had elapsed, 
 when I ventured to remind her of her past 
 promise to repay our family debt to Mrs. Sim- 
 mons. 
 
 *' Oh ! I had forgotten that dreadful woman,"
 
 ANOTHER BEGIXXING. 235 
 
 she said peevishly, as she beat her little hands 
 together -for an instant ; " I would have put her 
 off for ever so long, till I could have paid her 
 without missing the money." 
 
 " She took pity on me, Kate," I said. 
 
 " Then I'll forgive her, and pay her to-day — 
 the crab-apple !" said Katie, starting up. " You 
 must make haste. Faith, or all my good resolu- 
 tions will ooze out at my fingers'-ends." 
 
 Possibly her good resolutions did, for when 
 a Hansom cab was proceeding down Dor- 
 set Street — Katie would have a Hansom, as the 
 most expeditious method of reaching the old 
 home — she said, 
 
 " We're in a great hurry to fling good money 
 away, and to have impudence back for our pains. 
 Don't you think that Mrs. Simmons might wait 
 another week ?" 
 
 " I think that she has waited too long 
 already." 
 
 *' I try to pay my own debts, but when it 
 comes to father's it is a little hard." 
 
 " We are all of one family." 
 
 ^;;goo(f gracious I you'll want me to pay 
 
 »^
 
 23(5 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 something for Uncle Jef next, or perhaps make 
 good to the Westmairs all that father took." 
 
 " If you and I could do that, Katie — if we 
 only could, it would make amends for a great 
 deal." 
 
 " Those poor Westmaii's were badly treated 
 — I do wish they may get it, certainly." 
 
 I looked quickly into her face, but it was a 
 quiet little face enough — only the tone of her 
 voice had startled me with its irony, or its jest at 
 an affliction which had nearly broken my heart. 
 Perhaps I had been mistaken, for she said after- 
 wards in a more natural tone, 
 
 " I shall be glad to see father soon. I don't 
 think his strength will keep up against prison 
 fare and prison rules. His was always a weak 
 constitution." 
 
 We were at Mrs. Simmons's door before I 
 could reply, and Mrs. Simmons's face was 
 pressed against the window-glass, first in curi- 
 osity, and then in blank astonishment. It was 
 Mrs. Simmons, baby in arms, who opened the 
 street-door and asked us to walk in — who would 
 not have shaken hands with me in her parlour,
 
 ANOTHER BEGIXXIXG. 237 
 
 had I not offered my own and insisted upon it 
 — who rather demurred to my kissing her baby, 
 as it had " only just gone off to sleep," she said 
 — and who regarded Katie with a stony stare 
 far from indicative of any friendly feeling to- 
 wards her. 
 
 " I didn't think to see you again, after fright- 
 ening me ^\dth a letter at twelve o'clock that 
 Saturday night," said Mrs. Simmons ; " but it's 
 better late than never, I s'pose." 
 
 "I have not been ungrateful — I have been 
 thinking of you a great deal," I replied. 
 
 " It's quite natural you should Have gone to 
 her," said Mrs. Simmons, " but hardly that she 
 should have been glad to " 
 
 Here she paused, probably out of a faint de- 
 gree of respect for her visitor's feelings, for she 
 did not complete her sentence, but inquired, with 
 a little sniff, if we had called for anything in par- 
 ticular. 
 
 '* We have called to pay the back rent, and 
 all back claims," said Katie, petulantly. " Will 
 you state what they are, please ?" 
 
 " You know them as well as I do, I dare say."
 
 238 LITTLE KATE KIRBY 
 
 " No, I do not." 
 
 " Well, there's thirteen pounds six shillings 
 for the rent." 
 
 " And my sister's board and lodging until she 
 went away ?" inquired Katie. 
 
 " I've nothing to charge for that." Here Mrs. 
 Simmons set her lips together, and looked 
 sourer than ever. 
 
 " I would prefer to pay in full of all demands, 
 Mrs. Simmons," said Katie. 
 
 " Why ?" was the short question asked. 
 
 " You will be saying presently that she went 
 away in your debt, ungrateful for everything 
 you had done for her ; but neither she nor I wish 
 to be indebted to you." 
 
 " I shall never say a word against Aer," said 
 Mrs. Simmons, with emphasis, and without cast- 
 ing a glance in my direction ; *' she's the best 
 of you Kirbys, and she did the best for me in 
 my trouble, as I hope I did for her." 
 
 I replied that I was sure she did, and was 
 about to add that still the debt of obligation re- 
 mained, when she said more harshly, 
 
 " Don't you say a word about it to me, I don't
 
 ANOTHER BEGINXIXG. 239 
 
 want to hear it. If you're dead set on paying 
 me back, do it in some other way than money, 
 which you may be able to do — which I may 
 even ask you to do, if I live. You'll not be 
 always with your sister — she's one easily tired 
 of everybody." 
 
 "Oh, Faith is a shocking trial to me — so 
 dreadfully good — so very unlike me I" cried 
 Katie, laughing the more heartily as Mrs. Sim- 
 mons's brow contracted with the hilarity mani- 
 fested. 
 
 It was an unpleasant and unsatisfactory meet- 
 ing, and I was glad when it was at an end. There 
 was no power of mine, or upon earth, to make 
 Mrs. Simmons friends with Kate Kirby. They 
 were utterly opposed to each other — irrecon- 
 cilable atoms of humankind, impossible to coa- 
 lesce. Mrs. Simmons did not even thank her 
 for the money of which she had long ago 
 despaired, and which fell like golden manna 
 upon the poverty-haunted domicile in Dorset 
 Street. She took it as "her legal right, and 
 wrote out her receipt with formality, and with 
 much spluttering of ink, and a general smear-
 
 240 LITTLE KATE EIRBY. 
 
 ing of the document and the baby, her iufant 
 being clutched to her breast, and writing not 
 being an art in which she had ever excelled. 
 
 Then we went away — Katie flouncing out a 
 few moments before me, without saying good 
 morning to her old landlady. As she passed 
 out of the parlour Mrs. Simmons said quickly, 
 
 " This is your doings. Faith." 
 
 " No. She had always made up her mind to 
 pay you." 
 
 " I don't believe it," was the flat denial. 
 " But there, she's your relation — not mine, 
 thank goodness I" 
 
 "How is your son?" I asked, anxious to 
 change the subject of discourse. 
 
 " About the same," she answered. " Was it 
 you that followed him after all? Where did 
 he go ? How did you find your sister out ? He 
 tells me nothing." 
 
 " Don't ask me. I would rather not say yet 
 awhile." 
 
 " You are ashamed of her already?" she cried. 
 
 " No ; that is unjust, but I can't explain now. 
 She would not wish me."
 
 ANOTHER BEGINNING. 241 
 
 " Oh, if you have got to study her, you're in 
 for a fine thing," said Mrs. Simmons, with 
 her old impatient jerk of the chin that I knew 
 so well. 
 
 " Good-bye," I said. ^' You are not angry 
 with me?" 
 
 " Angry with you, girl ? No. But .1 shall 
 never have patience with that other one." 
 
 " Ah, you don't understand her." 
 
 She stood up and kissed me, and a few mo- 
 ments afterwards I was closing tbe door of the 
 house in Dorset Street behind me. It was 
 going away in earnest from the old home and 
 the old life. 
 
 "I told you how it would be," said Katie 
 when I had re-entered the cab with her. " I 
 have flung away my money, and been insulted 
 for my pains. What a little fool I was to pay 
 her a penny !" 
 
 " I don't think so," 1 answered. 
 
 " AVell, there's an end to the Dorset Street 
 den," she said after a short silence, " and I am 
 glad of that at least." 
 
 *' We were born there, you and I. I was your 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 242 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 governess, and almost your mother, in those up- 
 stairs rooms, for thirteen years, Kate." 
 
 "So you were," she answered in a different 
 tone ; " I have not forgotten it. 1 should have 
 been a worse woman long ago, Faith, if I had 
 not remembered it at times." 
 
 She was very thoughtful till we emerged into 
 the broader thoroughfare of Fleet Street ; 
 then the light mood rippled to the surface, born 
 as it were of the busy life about us, and which 
 she seemed to love. She hummed the air of 
 her last serio-comic ballad as we were driven 
 home to Long Acre.
 
 243 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 THREE LETTERS. 
 
 TT7ITH the next five months of my life I need 
 ^ ^ not detain the reader very long. During 
 that period nothing came in my way that offered 
 a chance of taking Katie from her sphere. She 
 was my protectress ; I was not hers, as I had 
 hoped to be in the conceit of my superior years. 
 What I should have done without her I often 
 wondered then, — I have often marvelled at 
 since, — and yet I was never wholly grateful for 
 the shelter of her home, and for ever dissatisfied 
 with the means which constituted it a home for 
 both of us. In those five months Katie shifted 
 from one music-hall to another, returning to Mr. 
 
 r2
 
 244 LITTLE KATE KTRBY. 
 
 Baxter's more than once, each time with an 
 addition to her salary, which he grumbled at, 
 but invariably consented to, and at which 
 triumph over his exchequer Katie rejoiced a 
 great deal. In those five months I had not re- 
 ceived a line from Uncle Jef. Now that there 
 was no reason for Katie's keeping her residence 
 a secret from the Dorset Street folk, I had 
 written to Mrs. Simmons and requested her to 
 forward on all letters for me. I had written 
 also from my new^ address to Pietermaritzburg, 
 but there had been no answer back. I had 
 called at the office which had first sent out 
 Jeffrey Kirby to the Cape, and they had no 
 reason to believe that anything had happened 
 to him, although he had not, up to the present 
 date, sent back his receipt for the last half- 
 year's salary. That something had happened I 
 was almost certain ; but I wrote with every 
 mail, and I kept on hoping for the best. 
 
 There had been another visit to Holloway 
 Prison, on this occasion by Katie, who had 
 argued with me that it was her turn, and whom 
 I let go in my place with reluctance.
 
 THREE LETTERS. 245 
 
 " He will be glad to see me. He has not seen 
 me since they took him from Dorset Street. 
 Oh, that dreadful night I", said Katie, shudder- 
 ing. "What would he think if I were to stop 
 away this time ?" 
 
 She had been the favourite daughter, and 
 what could I say ? That I was anxious to note 
 a change for the better in him, and that I was 
 uneasy at his not "baiting to us, even when the 
 prison rules allowed. I was more likely to 
 render him miserable, Katie thought, and she 
 said what she thought, and then went in my 
 stead. 
 
 I was surprised to find how little my sister 
 had to say when she returned, and what a cross 
 and puzzled face it was of hers, rather than of 
 any deep solicitude. She put up with all my 
 eager questioning, though scarcely with an easy 
 grace. The journey had distracted her, and 
 she was irritable. 
 
 Had she seen any difference in him ? Yes, a 
 great deal. He was in the infirmary ward, and 
 looked close to death's door. Had he said any- 
 thing about the robbery ? Not a word, and she
 
 246 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 hadn't been brute enough to mention the sub- 
 ject herself. (This was not intended for a home- 
 thrust, though it came at me Hke a stab.) Was 
 he hopeful or despondent ? Oh ! very hopeful 
 in his way; full of his old rubbish about his 
 coming riches, and prophesying wonders before 
 the next two years. Did she tell him what she 
 was doing? Yes — why shouldn't she? Did he 
 seem to mind that ? Not at all. Did she men- 
 tion Uncle Jef to him ? No, she forgot it ; 
 Uncle Jef never troubled her mind, being much 
 too good for her acquaintance. Did she mention 
 me ? To be sure, and father was glad to hear 
 that I was in good hands. 
 
 These were the principal questions and their 
 answers. There were various little changes 
 rung upon them, till Katie began to read the 
 newspaper over her tea, and to answer absently. 
 
 The newspaper helped to turn the conversa- 
 tion effectually. 
 
 " Why, Faith, here's an advertisement that 
 might suit you. Shall I read it ?" 
 
 "If you like." 
 
 Katie read it aloud. It was an advertisement
 
 THREE LETTERS. 247 
 
 for a governess and companion to a young lady, 
 and it enumerated in lengthy detail the accom- 
 plishments and virtues that would be required 
 of the applicant. It mentioned French, Italian, 
 and German by way of foreign languages, not 
 as deep studies, but as preliminary lessons, lead- 
 ing up to studies under future masters. It 
 emphasised English by adding " sound and 
 good" before it. It dwelt upon music, sacred 
 and secular, and it trusted that no one would 
 apply who was not accustomed to teaching, and 
 had not her heart in her profession. It required 
 authority, but great kindness and much Christi- 
 anity of feeling; and it mentioned that the very 
 large sum of a hundred and twenty pounds per 
 annum would be given, by way of salary, by 
 X. Y. Z., No. 434, Belgrave Square, to any lady 
 who was really suitable for the post in ques- 
 tion. 
 
 " I have seen that," I replied, when Katie 
 had finished. 
 
 " Have you answered it ?" 
 
 « No." 
 
 " You are tired of this up-hill work — you give
 
 248 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 in, and save rae a fortune in postage-stamps," 
 cried Katie. 
 
 " I have not given in," I answered, with a 
 sigh, " but it does not seem suitable for me." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " It is too big for my capabihties altogether." 
 
 " Never think too little of yourself, my sis- 
 ter," answered Katie. " The world takes a 
 poor young person like you at her own valua- 
 tion." 
 
 When Katie had gone away in her hired 
 brougham to the music-halls, whither I did not 
 always accompany her now — having, as it were, 
 more confidence in her powers of taking care 
 of herself — I made up my mind to answer the 
 advertisement which had attracted my sister's 
 notice. 1 had no belief in my chance, but I 
 wrote under the impression that it was not 
 right to neglect it, and even under the convic- 
 tion that Katie had called attention to the ad- 
 vertisement in the hope that I should reply to 
 it. Was she growing tired of me ? I thought, 
 remembering suddenly Mrs. Simmons's past 
 prophecy — or, better thought than that, was
 
 THREE LETTERS. 249 
 
 she more weary of the profession which she had 
 adopted, and would be glad in her heart to give 
 up? 
 
 Meanwhile I wrote out my application, told 
 part of my story, hinted that my references 
 were at Pietermaritzburg, spoke of myself in 
 as glowing terms as my modesty would allow, 
 dwelt upon my aptitude for teaching as a 
 strong point, and skimmed lightly over the 
 foreign language clause, French and Italian 
 being partly familiar to me, thanks to a studi- 
 ous uncle's teaching in the South African colony, 
 but German being still an unknown tongue. 
 The letter was sealed and ready for delivery 
 before Katie's return. My sister brought in two 
 letters with her, and stood for a moment re- 
 garding ray missive with surprise. 
 
 " What's that ?" she asked—" for me?" 
 
 " No. I have answered the advertisement." 
 
 " AY hat advertisement ?" 
 
 I was not surprised at Katie's forgetfulness ; 
 I had long ago discovered that hers was not a 
 retentive memory, save in matters exclusively 
 her own, when not an item escaped her. She
 
 250 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 had pained me more than once by her aptitude 
 to forget anything that related particularly 
 to me ; but then she had enough on her own 
 mind, poor Kate, without thinking deeply of 
 my little cares. It was natural that she should 
 forget them, but I did not see the matter al- 
 ways in its right light, and felt lnyself aggrieved 
 at times. 
 
 " The advertisement for a governess to a 
 young lady," I replied. 
 
 "Ah, yes, I remember," said Katie, careless- 
 ly. "Was it worth replying to? I thought 
 that you did not see the necessity." 
 
 " I thought afterwards that I would write a 
 few lines. Do you know, Katie, I fancied that 
 you wished me ?" 
 
 Katie had removed her bonnet and cloak, 
 and was sitting in her easy-chair before the 
 fire, a tired beauty, with clasped hands and 
 thoughtful eyes. The two letters that she had 
 brought in with her lay in her lap, one unsealed, 
 the other still unopened. She did not look up 
 as she replied to me. 
 
 " I might have had a passing thought that it
 
 THREE LETTERS. 251 
 
 was better for you, Faith — that you were not 
 happy here." 
 
 " I am as happy as I can be under circum- 
 stances that should keep us both grave," I said ; 
 "and, of course, I do not Kke to feel dependent 
 upon you." 
 
 " That's a right feeling enough. I am not 
 reproaching you," she answered, still very 
 thoughtfully. 
 
 " I would be glad to reverse the position, 
 and have you dependent upon me," I said. 
 
 " I wish to heaven that you could," she re- 
 plied, with a flash of energy that died out al- 
 most before the last words were spoken, for 
 she sat there thoughtful and apathetic the in- 
 stant afterwards. 
 
 "This grand situation, Katie, for example — 
 this impossible post for which I am applying — 
 why, a hundred and twenty pounds a year 
 would enable you to live quietly in some little 
 place where I could see you very often, and 
 where you could rest apart from this terrible 
 life until an opening as good as mine came to 
 yourself."
 
 252 LITTLE KATE KTRBY. 
 
 " I should not want all your money, Faith ; 
 you could not afford to give it me ; don't talk 
 in that childish fashion ; it is only aggravat- 
 ing." 
 
 I was surprised at her petulance. 
 
 *' I should not want much, and there would 
 be enough for you if " 
 
 " If 1 were not ambitious," she cried, inter- 
 rupting me ; '' if I had the courage to give up 
 this terrible life, as you call it. Well, Faith, 
 when the chance comes, ask me." 
 
 "You would not say no !" I exclaimed. 
 
 " I don't think that I would," she answered, 
 after a moment's steady survey of the bright 
 red fire, which we were glad to see even in 
 those evenings late in May ; " I should not be 
 sorry to escape ; God knows, I hate them all 
 enough." 
 
 It was so seldom that she betrayed any feel- 
 ing of grief or passion, that the sudden spread- 
 ing of her hands before her face to hide its 
 agitation from me, was like a new mystery 
 leaping to the foreground. 
 
 *' Katie, dear, something has happened," I
 
 THREE LETTERS. 253 
 
 said, bending over her ; " will you tell me what 
 it is?" 
 
 " Don't ask me : it isn't worth a thought ; 
 I'm a fool, that's all." 
 
 " But " 
 
 " But let me be : you can't advise me ; no 
 one can do me any good. Mine is a silly fancy 
 that has died out as it deserved to do. Don't 
 ask me what it is ; only see, there's an end of it 
 for ever." 
 
 She suddenly snatched at the open letter in 
 her lap, and thrust it into the fire, so recklessly 
 and with such vehemence that I gave a little 
 scream as the flame flickered at the lace trim- 
 ming of her sleeve, and scorched a portion of it 
 into tinder. 
 
 Her left hand had crushed out every spark 
 immediately ; she was not so alarmed for her 
 safety as I had been. 
 
 *' You are nervous, Faith : I don't know what 
 I shall do with you presently," she said with a 
 forced laugh. " I have only burnt a little of my 
 lace." 
 
 "And you will not tell me anything, then?" 
 I asked reproachfully.
 
 254 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 " There is so little to tell, Faith," she replied 
 in her old tones ; " and you are so fond of cross- 
 examination in your womanly curiosity, that I 
 never care to begin." 
 
 "I will not cross-examine you at all, if you 
 will give me some idea of your trouble," I urged. 
 " Why should we have any secrets from each 
 other 1" 
 
 " I can't tell," she answered : " I'm fond of 
 secrets perhaps ; I'm not out-spoken, assuredly. 
 But you may know as much as this, that there's 
 a man at the bottom of it ; that I have been 
 inclined to fall in love with him, and that he has 
 had a kind of sneaking fancy for me, and that 
 it is all over." 
 
 " Was it the gentleman who sent the bouquet 
 one night, when you first brought me home ? — 
 when you said that you were romantic ?" 
 
 " What a dreadful memory you have ! — you 
 ought to have forgotten all that nonsense." 
 
 " I have often wondered " 
 
 " Yes, I know. You have been always won- 
 dering," she cried. "Well, it was he, and in 
 his way he was a gentleman. He found out
 
 THREE LETTERS. 255 
 
 that he was too much of a gentleman for my 
 acquamtauce, though, and I discovered that he 
 was not gentleman enough to give me credit 
 for all that he should have done, and so we 
 quarrelled, and there's his last dying speech and 
 confession." 
 
 She pointed to the fire, and laughed pleasant- 
 ly enough as she concluded ; but, actress though 
 she was, I knew her heart was aching that 
 night. 
 
 " And you have never told me a word of 
 this," I said reproachfully. " How is it that you 
 have met without my knowledge? — how is it 
 that " 
 
 " We did meet, that's all, Faith. Remember, 
 there is to be no cross-examination of the de- 
 fendant." 
 
 I was silent after this remonstrance. She 
 fell once more into thought, though she affected 
 to be singing softly to herself, and I was left to 
 marvel at that romance of her life which had 
 flowed on so noiselessly beside me, and I never 
 the wiser by a word or look. I could remem- 
 ber many excuses for her going out in the after-
 
 256 LITTLE KATE KIEBY. 
 
 noon and early evening alone now, and I 
 reconciled these departures with the lovers' 
 meetings, which might be never again for her. 
 Yes, I icas of a curious nature, for I longed for 
 the details of a "love-story that she had made up 
 her mind not to tell me — how it had begun, and 
 what had put an end to it? Who was the 
 lover, what was he like, and when had the be- 
 ginning of love first given hope to her heart? 
 It was very strange that I should not know 
 this — and that even to Katie I should seem un- 
 deserving of a sister's confidence. Something 
 akin to my last thought suggested itself to her, 
 for she said suddenly, 
 
 " I don't tell you a long story, Faith, for the 
 simple reason that I know what a silly I have 
 been, and that I cannot dwell upon anything 
 which sets me in a ridiculous light. But, my 
 girl, I am not heart-broken — I am not going to 
 let down my back hair, and run about with a 
 whole stableful of straw in my hands, as that 
 misguided young woman in Hamlet did — I am 
 for myself alone." 
 
 '' And for me a little?" I added.
 
 THREE LETTERS. 257 
 
 " Yes — for yon a little. For a moment, Faith, 
 I had almost forgotten you, and yet what a 
 good, brave woman you are !" 
 
 " And when the time comes, and the power is 
 in my hands to help you, you will come to me, 
 Katie f 
 
 " Yes — with all my heart," she murmured. 
 
 She turned away her head beneath my caress, 
 and I was sure that tears were falling in the 
 firelight, though she did not care that I should 
 be a witness to her weakness. 
 
 She recovered herself very quickly ; the envi- 
 able art of concealing her emotions, or shaking 
 them away, was hers in an extraordinary de- 
 gree — the result of early struggling in the 
 world, combined with a natural power of self- 
 repression. 
 
 " What a time that girl is with the supper- 
 tray !" were her next words, " and I am dread- 
 fully hungry." 
 
 When the supper was brought in she did not 
 show much signs of hunger, however ; and when 
 the tray was carried away after supper, she sud- 
 denly put her second letter into ray hands. 
 
 VOL. I. S
 
 258 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 "" I forgot to say, Faith, that that's for you." 
 
 " For me ?" I said in astonishment. 
 
 " Yes, and I know what's in it, too. But read 
 for yourself." 
 
 I opened the note, and read as follows : 
 
 " Mr. Baxter presents his compliments to Miss 
 Kir by, and requests the favour of her company 
 to the annual pic-nic of the artistes of his estab- 
 lishment, at Bushey Park, on Wednesday morn- 
 ing next. The carriages will start from the 
 Hall of Harmony at ten in the morning precisely. 
 An answer will oblige." 
 
 " I — I go with them !" I cried. " What made 
 him think that I should dream of it ?" 
 
 " I made him think of it, Katie, for I asked 
 him to ask you." 
 
 She laughed at my consternation, then said 
 more earnestly — 
 
 " And I want you to ^o. I want you to take 
 care of me, and be my guide — to be the friend 
 to whom I can turn suddenly, should I want a 
 friend." 
 
 " I do not see that I " 
 
 ' " He may be there, and T wish to be very firm
 
 THREE LETTERS. 259 
 
 and proud ^\nth him if be comes, if he should 
 think it worth his while to venture in my direc- 
 tion. I know that you would not go to this 
 pic-nic for your own sake. Will you come for 
 mine f ' 
 
 " Yes, if you wish it." 
 
 " There's a dear, good Faith. It will be one 
 of the great Baxter's monster advertisements," 
 she said ; " but it will be amusing, and I am 
 compelled to go. Now write your answer be- 
 fore your courage fails you, then I shall be satis- 
 fied and safe." 
 
 *' Very well." 
 
 I wrote the answer, sadly and doubtfully, but 
 I did not hesitate. Katie had wished it — she 
 was afraid of something, it was evident — she 
 relied even upon me, which was remarkable. 
 . The servant was dispatched to the pillar-box 
 with the two notes I had written' that evening ; 
 to one of them, and to the surprise of both of 
 us, there came an answer before twenty-four 
 hours had elapsed. This was it : — 
 
 "434, Belgrave Square. 
 
 " X. Y. Z. would be glad of an interview with 
 
 s2
 
 260 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 Miss Kirby respecting the post of governess for 
 which she has applied. X. Y. Z. would be glad 
 to see Miss Kirby at the above address on Satur- 
 day next, at eleven a.m. precisely."
 
 261 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE RIDE TO BUSHEY PARK. 
 
 THE letter from X. Y. Z., appointiDg an inter- 
 view for the following Saturday was a 
 perplexity to me ; I had become so accustomed 
 to silence following all appeals for service, that 
 this prompt reply of an anonymous correspond- 
 ent excited me more than I had anticipated. I 
 had Avritten without a hope ; I had related my 
 old story with less perspicuity and energy than 
 usual, and had too plainly, I thought, confessed 
 to my own shortcomings, to be singled out 
 from an army of applicants hungry for 
 place. 
 
 Certainly I had not obtained the post. " It 
 might be a swindle altogether," Katie had said
 
 262 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 emphatically; curiosity might have prompted 
 the advertiser to see a person who had written 
 so strange a reply to his advertisement ; or a 
 crafty agent, anxious to secure a registration 
 fee, might be the real solution to the riddle. 
 And yet I had expected to be lucky some day ; 
 I had not believed in misfortune for ever op- 
 pressing me, and thwarting every step to get 
 away from it ; my own teaching and trust as- 
 sured me of abetter time, and I had kept strong 
 with that assurance. 
 
 Katie had no faith in the result, and so terri- 
 fied me with legends of designing advertisers, 
 that I took one preliminary walk to Belgrave 
 Square to see No 434 for myself, and judge if 
 it was a respectable-looking edifice. 1 found 
 it all that could be desired in its exterior aspect, 
 not a place likely to be selected as the head- 
 quarters of a rogue or vagabond. It was a solid- 
 looking mansion, wherein dwelt people well- 
 to-do. I should be a lucky woman if I found a 
 home there. 
 
 I acquainted Katie, on my return, with the 
 result of my explorations, but she had lost- a
 
 THE RIDE TO BUSHEY PARK. 263 
 
 great deal of interest in the subject. It had not 
 entered into her head that there was a chance of 
 my obtaining the situation without references 
 — men and women of the world were not likely 
 to believe in South Africa — and there were 
 portions of my family's antecedents that I must 
 conceal, or by divulging must set my listeners 
 against me. I was " hedged in," and Katie had 
 no faith in my escape. She had settled the 
 position in her own mind, and there was an end 
 of it. She had her own story to dwell upon, 
 and that troubled her at times. Alone she 
 brooded not a little, I was sure, although she 
 never confessed to me that she was anything 
 different from the light-hearted, shrewd little 
 woman to whom I was indebted for a home. 
 Coming in suddenly, I would surprise her in 
 deep thought, her big hazel eyes looking out 
 across her own world to the sphere wherein she 
 had met her one romance and lost it, her beauti- 
 ful face full of a grief or pain that my presence 
 would startle away. 
 
 When we had first met, I had not been as- 
 tonished at her reticence ; it was natural ; I had
 
 264 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 been four years away, and had returned with 
 very opposite ideas oflife's duties from her own ; 
 but her silence now, concerning herself and' her 
 future, wounded me deeply. I thought that 
 she might have learned to trust me. AYe were 
 more like common friends than sisters in many 
 things ; we did not confide in each other ; I knew 
 too well that I could not interest Katie in all 
 that was in my heart, or formed part of my 
 ambitions, and she was certain that her profes- 
 sion was only suggestive to me of alarm. 
 Hence, though we had our little outbursts of 
 sympathy, we w^ere never real confidantes; if we 
 had been, this story would have taken different 
 lines and led to different results — whether for 
 better or worse, the reader must judge for him- 
 self in the future pages of this book. 
 
 Hence Katie had her cares, which she did not 
 ask me to share, which she would not have own- 
 ed to possessing. She professed to have the 
 pic-nic party on her mind now, the dress she 
 would wear, the business engagements that 
 might ensue from it, and the pleasure that might 
 be born of it. She was anxious to interest me
 
 THE RIDE TO BUSHEY PARK. 265 
 
 also, and was for ever reraincling me that I had 
 promised to accompany her, though she said not 
 a word more concerning her reasons for my 
 going. When the Wednesday morning came, I 
 would have given all my worldly possessions — 
 Katie's locket, which I had redeemed from the 
 pawnbrokers, excepted — to be spared the ordeal 
 of accompanpng the procession. I had been 
 nervous concerning it all Tuesday, and I prayed 
 heartily for a respite, for wet weather, for any- 
 thing that might postpone the evil day which 
 had dawned. 
 
 I was wanting in the art of adaptability to 
 circumstances, in the power to disguise what 
 annoyed me, and I did not wish to be marked, 
 or be in any way a contrast to the general en- 
 joyment. 
 
 " If I could only stop at home !" I said to Katie 
 at the last moment. 
 
 " Xousense ! the drive into the country will 
 do you good," Katie replied ; " you will not be 
 noticed if it's your wish to keep aloof, and you 
 will find some pleasant people if you care to look 
 for them. We are not all ogres and ogresses."
 
 266 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 Not all — not half, possibly ; but still, to my 
 mind, having a sufficient number of ogres and 
 ogresses in their midst to render the whole ex- 
 pedition an unpleasant one. I should not dwell 
 upon it in detail here, were it not that it takes its 
 place in the chain of events leading up to many 
 changes. 
 
 I am never likely to forget the grand start 
 from the Hall of Harmony, in drags, wagonettes, 
 and private omnibuses, with Tommy Pounce's 
 equipage a principal feature in the grand pro- 
 cession. Katie was right about this being a 
 monster advertisement for Mr. Baxter, who com- 
 bined pleasure to his employes with notoriety to 
 himself, by the annual entertainment to which I 
 had been invited. Katie and I were late in ar- 
 riving at the meeting-place, where we found the 
 street choked up with that large section of the 
 British public that has nothing to do but take its 
 ease on kerb-stones when there is anything 
 worth seeing in prospective. 
 
 If X. Y. Z. could behold me now ! I thought, 
 as I clutched Katie's arm in my first alarm at a 
 cheer which greeted my sister's appearance be-
 
 THE RIDE TO BUSHEY PARK. 267 
 
 fore the Hall of Harmony, in the principal corri- 
 dor of which the members of the company were 
 waiting, all in high spirits and most of them in 
 bright colours ; with Mr. Baxter running about 
 in a state of great excitement, his arms full of 
 bouquets for the ladies, and a great deal of the 
 blood in his body settling in his face and behind 
 his ears. 
 
 " Let me keep close to you, Katie ; don't run 
 away," I whispered, and Katie turned round and 
 laughed at me. 
 
 " This is my strong-minded sister, who would 
 do me so much good," she said. 
 
 The words were spoken lightly, and were not 
 meant for a reproach, but they struck home. 
 She was right ; why should I expect one so self- 
 possessed and strong to rely upon me in any 
 particular ? Did she not know the world better 
 than I ? and was she not far more calculated to 
 take care of herself therein ? 
 
 Ah ! yes, but it was this world from which we 
 should escape presently, I thought. 
 
 Katie was a general favourite, and her 
 welcome was a flattering one.
 
 268 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 "I was afraid you were going to sell us," 
 cried a lady of six-and-twenty, with charming 
 frankness — a lady who carried much colour un- 
 blushingly in the broad day-light, and whose 
 arched eyebrows were unmistakable works 
 of art ; " why, where have you been all this 
 time?" 
 
 " Getting ready, to be sure. Tilly, this is my 
 particular friend Miss Kirby — Faith, my dear 
 friend Tilly Beaufort, of whom you have heard 
 me speak." 
 
 I was attempting a bow of acknowledgment, 
 when Tilly Beaufort took me in her arms, 
 crushed my bonnet, and embraced me passion- 
 ately. 
 
 " My dear child, how are you ?" she cried ; " I 
 am glad to see you — I know all about you — 
 you're Katie's friend from Africa. I knew Kate 
 when she was a Kirby, in Dorset Street; she 
 touched up my music a bit, before I was a great 
 gun, and 1 got her out at my benefit, with a big 
 cram about her American reputation. Did she 
 ever tell you ?" 
 
 " Yes, she told me," I found room to say; and
 
 THE RIDE TO BUSHEY PARK. 269 
 
 then Tilly Beaufort, the popular female vocal- 
 ist, went away, laughing heartily and showing 
 every one of her large, handsome teeth. 
 
 " What do you think of her ?" asked Katie. 
 
 " Well, I don't like her much," I answered. 
 
 " You don't like anybody much," said Kate 
 quietly, " but with all her vulgarity — she is a lit- 
 tle vulgar — there isn't a better-hearted woman. 
 When I tell you that I'm not jealous of her 
 popularity, you may imagine that I like her. 
 Here's Tommy." 
 
 " Oh, dear !" I ejaculated. 
 
 Tommy Pounce was upon us before I had 
 time to repress my exclamation. He was as 
 elaborately costumed as usual, and burdened 
 by a few ounces more jewelry than when I had 
 last the honour of seeing him. Though gorge- 
 ously arrayed, he was not in good spirits. A 
 zephyr coat, a silky white hat, light lavender kid 
 gloves, a green satin stock with a diamond pin 
 therein, a pair of lavender trousers with 
 a green stripe down the side to match the 
 stock, had given, with other adornments, a 
 glory to his outer man of which any star-comic
 
 270 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 might have beeu proud ; and yet it was evident, 
 from his depressing cast of countenance, that 
 something had gone wrong with the " Colos- 
 sal." 
 
 When he spoke, the reason was apparent. 
 
 ** Well, Kate— how are you. Miss Kirby ?" he 
 croaked forth in tones that were partly sepul- 
 chral, and partly like a wheezy old bagpipes. 
 
 "Oh, dear! what a bad cold you have got," 
 said Katie, solicitously, after we had responded 
 to his welcome. 
 
 "Yes, I should think I had," replied Mr. 
 Pounce ; " it's all that infernal open-air trap of 
 Baxter's. I've been out in all weathers, and 
 you'll be sorry to hear it's flown to my throat." 
 
 " Oh ! lam sorry," said Katie. 
 
 " My voice is nowhere," he added, after two 
 or three seconds' coughing. 
 
 "You were all right last night," Katie re- 
 marked. 
 
 " Yes, till I got home, and then it was like a 
 hundred cussed darning needles in my throat. 
 I'm afraid it's what they call dipsteeria — I'm 
 awfully queer,"
 
 THE RIDE TO BUSHEY PARK. 271 
 
 " "What made you come out?" said Katie. 
 
 " Oh, you know," he answered meaningly, 
 and "I'm sure I don't," was Katie's pert reply. 
 
 " Of course I wanted to be one of the party, if 
 you was — if you were coming," he said, correct- 
 ing his grammar with commendable celerity, 
 " and I did not care to be out of it altogether, 
 and everybody asking where Tommy Pounce 
 was. Baxter says that the drive will cheer me 
 up, and bring my voice round, but Baxter's a 
 hass. I don't know what everj'body '11 do, if I 
 don't get better soon — there's the Alcazar, and 
 the Muses' Temple, Cow Cross, and the Hapollo 
 — they all count on me next Monday." 
 
 " They'll think all the more of you, Mr. 
 Pounce, when you do appear," said Katie in 
 assuring tones. 
 
 " Yes, I know that," said Pounce, after a mo- 
 ment's rueful consideration of the subject, " but 
 this is not a common hoarseness ; it goes right to 
 here," he added, striking the pit of his stomach 
 with the flat of his gloved hand, before he 
 marched mournfully away from us. 
 
 A few minutes more, and we had made our
 
 272 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 way into the street, and in the bustle of the 
 mounting, the general excitement of the party, 
 the confusion on all sides, I lost Katie, and 
 found myself on the top of a private coach, by 
 the side of Mr. Baxter, who had assisted me to 
 the box-seat. I had made some little objection 
 to this position, but the interiors of the vehicles 
 were full of hampers, and the broad flight of 
 steps marked " Hall of Harmony" formed a con- 
 venient and uuembarrassing mode of ascent for 
 a nervous young female. When I was settled, 
 and had had time to reflect on the compliments 
 that had been paid me by the proprietor of one 
 of the largest drinking dens in the metropolis, 
 I looked round for Katie. She was by the side 
 of Tommy Pounce on the drag, wherein were 
 Tilly -Beaufort and a host of professionals, comic 
 and serious, and all more or less notorious. 
 Behind me were two or three large private 
 omnibuses, heaped up with ladies of the ballet 
 and their friends ; and sprinkled among the 
 general community were a few vacant-looking, 
 silly-faced young men, whose mission it was 
 to " see life," to patronise " this kind of
 
 THE RIDE TO BUSHEY PARK. 273 
 
 thiog," to talk of the spree they had had with 
 '* Baxter's lot," and to affect in general to be 
 more dissipated and unprincipled than even 
 their worthlessness warranted. I wished again 
 that I had not joined the party — the general 
 survey of the company caused me to shudder so 
 forcibly. 
 
 " Why, you're cold !" said Mr. Baxter, who 
 was evidently of an observant turn of mind ; 
 *' I'm blest if you ain't a-shivering ! Will you 
 have another shawl ? — will you have a nip of 
 brandy before we start ?" 
 
 " No, thank you." 
 
 " Then we'll be off. I think we've had stir 
 enough here for one day. What a 'ouse there'll 
 be to-night !" he muttered. 
 
 He gave the signal for starting, and I drew 
 my veil more closely over my face as the crowd 
 cheered, and hundreds of little boys tried to get 
 under the wheels and discover for themselves 
 what the Juggernaut sensation was like, and 
 everybody ran out of doors or looked out ol 
 windows. Then we wound our way through 
 Surrey thoroughfares towards Vauxhall Bridge, 
 
 VOL. I. T
 
 274 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 making our way for the Fulham and Richmond 
 roads. It was a pleasant drive, and when we 
 were free of the London streets, where it was 
 Mr. Baxter's business to linger as long as possi- 
 ble, and attract as much curiosity and admira- 
 tion from the masses as it was in his power to 
 attract, I was more at my ease. But oh, those 
 dreadful streets before the country road was 
 reached, the blank stares of people to whom 
 music-halls were unknown territories, the won- 
 dering glances, the envious, the admiiing, the 
 contemptuous ! 
 
 " There's Tommy Pounce ; hooray. Tommy I" 
 was shouted forth at times, and indeed, all those 
 whose popularity had secured them a footing at 
 more than one place of entertainment had their 
 reward, in being pointed at and shouted at until 
 the busy streets of town were left behind us. 
 
 "I hope you're comfortable, Miss Kirby?" said 
 Mr. Baxter, when he had leisure to devote more 
 time to me, and less to his horses. 
 
 " Yes, thank you," I replied. 
 
 I had resolved to be as amiable as possible, 
 for Katie's sake ; this man at my side paid Katie
 
 THE RIDE TO BUSHEY PARK. 275 
 
 a liberal sum per week for singing at his estab- 
 lishment. 
 
 " I think we shall have a fine day," he said 
 suddenly, in those thick tones which, on my first 
 acquaintance with him, I had very unjustly 
 attributed to drink ; " the clouds are high, and 
 the sun's as warm and bright as uinepence. Do 
 you know Bushey Park ?" 
 
 " Yes, I remember it." 
 
 I had gone once to it when a child, with 
 father ; he had taken Katie and me for a day's 
 holiday on a river steamer, as far as Hampton, 
 and we were a happy trio then. I wondered on 
 the instant whether Katie remembered it as well 
 as I did. 
 
 " It's a stunning place for a pic-nic," affirmed 
 Mr. Baxter. 
 
 "Indeed!" 
 
 Mr. Baxter was a polite man, and a loqua- 
 cious man, but he was not refined in his dis- 
 course. Originally he had been a pot-boy at a 
 publican's in South Bermondsey, and there 
 were invidious folk existent who maintained 
 that *' old Baxter " could neither read nor write, 
 
 T 2
 
 276 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 but in this particular they were incorrect. 
 Take him altogether, he was, in my poor esti- 
 mation, and at that time, a prince of gentle- 
 men to Tommy Pounce, although I hoped that I 
 might be mercifully spared from seeing him 
 again. 
 
 Before we reached Richmond, I discovered 
 Mr. Baxter's motives — for he had more than 
 one — in placing me in the post of honour at his 
 side. I cannot say that they were motives dis- 
 creditable to him, but they annoyed me none 
 the less, and at Bushey Park I began to think 
 that I liked Tommy Pounce the better of the 
 two. So that the reader may perceive I was 
 capricious in my fancies. 
 
 "Are Tommy and Katie going to make a 
 match of it, do you think ?" he asked suddenly, 
 and after following my backward glance at the 
 drag, where the two were talking earnestly 
 together. 
 
 '* Heaven forbid !" I cried, before I had time 
 to restrain myself. 
 
 " Everybody says so, you know," he said with 
 a disgusting wink of his left eye, intended as a
 
 THE RIDE TO BUSHEY PARK. 277 
 
 tribute to the clear-sightedness of everybody, 
 himself included. 
 
 " Everybody is wrong," I said warmly, " and 
 Katie is not likely to thank anyone for spread- 
 ing the report." 
 
 •' It wouldn't be a bad match," he said slowly. 
 
 " I think it would be a very bad one." 
 
 " What makes you think that. Miss Kirby ?" 
 
 He appeared so curious that his manner put 
 me on my guard, and though I still maintained 
 my first assertion, I did not enter into detail 
 concerning my reason for doubting a statement 
 in which he was disposed to place credence. I 
 was Katie's friend, and might be able to give 
 him a hint or two, he had thought, and he was 
 not a sufficient adept in disguise to conceal 
 from me what was on his mind. 
 
 " Tommy's fond of her, Tm sure," he said ; 
 " he has been awfully upset about that young 
 swell who came after her so much ; awfully cut 
 up, in fact, and though he made love to Tilly 
 Beaufort, it was only his temper. Don't you 
 really think they'd make a decent pair, now ?" 
 
 " No, I do not."
 
 278 LITTLE KATE EIRBY. 
 
 " Hasn't Katie said anything about Tommy, 
 now?" he inquired; "about marrying him, and 
 starting a music-hall of their own? — where 
 they'd be sure to fail," he added with sudden 
 and amazing energy ; " I'm sure you know all 
 about it." 
 
 " Miss Baskerville " — I had some difficulty in 
 calling Katie by her assumed name — " does not 
 take me into her confidence," I replied. 
 
 " Oh ! that's all nonsense. Girls will talk, and 
 you are together in Long Acre, you know. 
 Ain't you, now ?" 
 
 Mr. Baxter's " nows " were particularly 
 aggravating, especially when they were accom- 
 panied with a playful nudge of his elbow, which 
 was not unfrequent. 
 
 '^ Yes, we are together." 
 
 " Like sisters, in fact ; ah, ha ! like sisters," and 
 this time he nearly nudged me off the box-seat 
 into the roadway. I did not reply ; I did not 
 like Mr. Baxter quite so well as I had done ; I 
 moved as far from him and his objectionable 
 elbow as I could, and looked straight before me 
 along the high road, echoing with the clatter of
 
 THE RIDE TO BUSHEY PARK. 279 
 
 our horses' hoofs and the merry laughter of the 
 party. I saw that our secret, such as it was, 
 had been discovered by Mr. Baxter. The like- 
 ness between us was too strong for disguise, 
 and yet I had never considered myself much 
 like Katie. 
 
 Katie was darker than I, and the resemblance 
 had been more marked when we were children, 
 I fancied. She was pretty, and I was rather a 
 plain little thing — Uncle Jef told me that, with 
 his own odd frankness, one day in Pietermaritz- 
 burg — but still the likeness was strong enough 
 to open Mr. Baxter's eyes to the truth. 
 
 " I don't say you are sisters, mind," said he, 
 after an interval of five minutes for mature re- 
 flection ; " that may be a little joke of mine. Still 
 you are alike, and I'm dashed if you don't ^ing 
 alike too, for when I called four weeks ago — 
 that day I was in a worry about Katie going to 
 the Jolly Plasterers' benefit — I didn't say any- 
 thing, but you were singing as 1 came up them 
 stairs in Long Acre, and I stopped outside the 
 door and listened a bit. Ah, ha ! Don't you 
 sing, now ?"
 
 280 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 Here ensued another playful motion of his 
 elbow, which I managed to ekide. 
 
 *' I have led a choir at chapel, in Pietermaritz- 
 burg, but I do not profess to sing." 
 
 '' You've a good voice, 'pon my soul ; I've 
 been thinking of it, and it's suited for the senti- 
 mental line of business," he continued ; " I wish 
 you'd try it one night at the Hall — say a 
 Hafrican gal going into slavery, now — a charac- 
 ter bit. If it answers with the hordience, I'll 
 strike a bargain the moment you come off. 
 There, I'll strike a bargain at once, if you're 
 game." 
 
 But I was not game. I felt very much as 
 though I had been insulted, and yet I had not a 
 fair excuse to speak my mind. I could only 
 thank him in a low voice, and state that it was 
 never my intention to sing in public ; after which 
 expression of my sentiments, Mr. Baxter appear- 
 ed to lose a great deal of his interest in me. I 
 looked behind at Katie occasionally, and saw 
 that she was in high spirits, with no sign of 
 yesternight's strange shadow on her. I could 
 hear her laughing pleasantly at Tommy Pounce's
 
 THE RIDE TO BUSHEY PARK. 281 
 
 jokes, or at Tommy Pounce's personal appear- 
 ance, which was not enhanced by a very large 
 woollen comforter that, having found the breeze 
 too strong for him, he had recently wound 
 round his throat in many folds. Tilly Beaufort 
 appeared more anxious about his cold than my 
 sister, and once I had seen her carefully tucking 
 in the corners of the comforter down the back 
 of his neck, with a solicitude about the Colossal's 
 health that should have impressed that gentle- 
 man more favourably. Mr. Baxter said again 
 to my annoyance, as he glanced in my direc- 
 tion also, " Tommy is dead nuts on Katie. I 
 wonder you haven't seen it ; I wonder she 
 hasn't told you more about it, now.*' 
 
 " Dead nuts" implied a deep affection on Mr. 
 Pounce's part for Katie, I imagined by the con- 
 text ; I was getting used to the slang of these 
 people — perhaps, if I stayed much longer with 
 them, I should get slangy myself. 
 
 I was glad when Bushey Park was reached, 
 and the opportunity to get free of Mr. Baxter, 
 and reach Katie's side, seemed to come at length 
 as a reward for all my patience. I looked at
 
 282 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 my watcli — another redeemed pledge which 
 Katie had kindly got out of the pawnbroker s 
 clutches for me — and found that the morning 
 had already passed away. That made so many 
 hours nearer to home, and I was glad in my 
 heart. Perhaps I was ungrateful — very pro- 
 bably ; I was a young w^oman of a dissatisfied 
 turn of mind altogether ; Katie had a suspicion 
 that way, and I was not quite certain that she 
 was altogether wrong. 
 
 Had I been content with anything ? — in 
 the old times in London with my surroundings ; 
 in the African colony, or with my still life away 
 from all friends but Uncle Jef ; in London again, 
 with my troubles clustering so thickly about me 
 that every fairer prospect of a future was shut 
 out by their density and number ? Was there 
 anything that would satisfy me, or stay the rest- 
 less beatings of my heart against the bars of the 
 cage that held me in ?
 
 283 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 I ENACT THE CHAMPION. 
 
 T WAS successful in eluding further attention 
 -*- on the part of Mr. Baxter, or Mr. Baxter had 
 too much upon his mind to consider me, when 
 the real business of the pic-nic had commenced ; 
 but in my second determination to take care of 
 Katie — as she had asked me to do last night — I 
 met with nothing but mortification and rebuff. 
 Katie had forgotten her request, and had almost 
 forgotten me. The excitement of the day, the 
 pleasure of the drive, the fresh air, the scenery, 
 the company, the consciousness that she was a 
 favourite with her contemporaries, had carried 
 away all traces of past gloom, even raised her 
 spirits to a degree which I had not hitherto
 
 284 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 witnessed. She was the life of the party, and 
 gave animation to the rest. She took an active 
 part in the arrangements for the coming 
 luncheon, and there was a bright smile, a gay- 
 jest, a quick laughing rejoinder for all who spoke 
 to her. 
 
 " How well she bears trouble !" I thought, as 
 I watched her bright figure in the sunshine ; 
 '* or else," was my second reflection, " how little 
 she lets trouble bear upon her !" 
 
 There are those happily constituted beings in 
 the world whom no trouble seems to affect, more 
 especially those troubles that do not come 
 straight home to them, and perhaps Katie was 
 one of these. Katie thought that I met troubles 
 half way, and pitied me accordingly ; and cer- 
 tainly, at this period of our lives, she was by 
 ninety per cent, the happier woman of the two. 
 Heaven knows, I did not envy her for this ! It 
 was as well for her that she could face the 
 world with a bolder outlook than her sister 
 Faith. 
 
 " Why, Faith, how grave you are looking !" 
 said Katie, coming up to me at last, " although
 
 I EXACT THE CHAMPION. 285 
 
 the ride has brought some of the old colour to 
 your cheeks. What a glorious day ! I feel 
 better and stronger for it." 
 
 *' I am glad to hear it, Katie, but " 
 
 " Well, but " 
 
 " Has he come ?" 
 
 " Who ? — oh, no, he hasn't," she answered 
 very quickly, *' and so much the better for all 
 parties concerned. I don't want to see him. I 
 can be happy enough without him. We're going 
 to dance after luncheon — the band is coming 
 down to Teddington by train — what partners 
 can I get you, Faith ?" 
 
 " I shall not dance." 
 
 " I hope you will ; you must not stand aloof, 
 or look too fine for us. Would you like to waltz 
 with Tommy Pounce?" 
 
 *' Oh, no, I should not like to do that I" I cried 
 with a shiver. 
 
 " Well, he's not in good spirits — he's very ill, 
 he says, and is trying Mr. Baxter's recipe of 
 horse-radish and vinegar for his voice — there he 
 is, sitting with his back against the tree." 
 
 " I hope the recipe will do him good," I said ;
 
 286 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 and then at the sight of Mr. Pounce, consuming 
 his specific in the shade, and with a woe-begone 
 expression of countenance, I could not forbear 
 laughing. 
 
 "That's well, Faith," cried Katie, "you are 
 brighter — you're shaking off by degrees some of 
 the grave looks. Poor Tommy ! so you hope it 
 will do him good ; / hope it will not." 
 
 ''Oh, Katie!" 
 
 *' The hoarser he gets, the less I shall have ol 
 his nonsense," she cried ; *' the more he will 
 think of himself, and the less of me." 
 
 She tripped away, humming one of her own 
 songs, and the instant afterwards was flirting in 
 an animated way over the laying out of the 
 lobster salads with an idiotic youth who wore 
 a glass in his left eye, kept his right half closed, 
 and his mouth three-quarters open. I was told 
 that he was a lord's son, and I pitied the lord 
 very much. 
 
 The scene was novel and amusing, and had I 
 not been intimately connected therewith, I 
 should have enjoyed it the more. I was em- 
 ban-assed in the midst of it, but with Katie
 
 I ENACT THE CHAMPION. 287 
 
 occasionally glancing in my direction, I did my 
 best to sustain the character which it had been 
 her wish that I should assume. I endeavoured 
 to make myself generally agreeable — and upon 
 the whole I succeeded tolerably well. 
 
 All was full of animation, and there was no- 
 thing to object to in the fun and spirit pervad- 
 ing the community. The old park through 
 which the patriotic cobbler of Hampton Wick 
 secured the right of way was at its best, and 
 the day was at its best also. The chestnut- 
 trees were full of deep green shado wings, with 
 their branches borne down by the clusters of the 
 cones — it w^ould be Chestnut Sunday in five more 
 days — the shy deer were in the distance, mak- 
 ing up their minds to approach us presently 
 for gift-offerings — the sky was intensely blue 
 over our heads, the sun was shining, and the 
 birds were singing amongst the leaves, or dart- 
 ing to and fro across the landscape. 
 
 There was more gaiety after the champagne 
 lunch — but then there always is a greater flow 
 of spirits after the wine has been drunk — and 
 though I did not dance, I took some amuse-
 
 288 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 ment from watching the toy-like figures that 
 were spinning round me. 
 
 The annual pic-nic was a success ; it would 
 have been written down a success in one or 
 two peculiar papers at least, under any circum- 
 stances — for there were the reporters, and 
 much had been made of them by Mr. Baxter, so 
 much that the gentleman sent by the Music Hall 
 Trumpet was lying face downwards on the grass, 
 with his hat crushed beneath his chest, "a little 
 overcome," as Katie delicately put it. 
 
 I considered it a success until half-past three 
 in the afternoon, and then I found myself draw- 
 ing farther from the scene, becoming as it were 
 afraid or distrustful of the actors therein. The 
 excitement and noise became more fast and 
 furious amongst a few — not amongst the majori- 
 ty perhaps — the dancing grew more vigorous, 
 and the laughter shriller. 
 
 There was a proneness to extravagance of 
 action in some of the ladies of the company, and 
 their loud screams of hilarity jarred upon me 
 and vexed me. 
 * I watched Katie anxiously, but I had nothing
 
 I EXACT THE CHAMPIOX. 289 
 
 to fear from her. Her high spirits had not 
 increased with the lateness of the hour. She 
 was sitting by the side of Mr. Pounce, talk- 
 ing quite seriously to him, but looking thought- 
 fully ahead, as if be were a long way from her; 
 and he, I knew, was in a very serious mood 
 himself. Only half an hour since, I had heard 
 him huskily inform Mr. Baxter that he was al- 
 most speechless, that he had been a fool to 
 come, and that that " beastly mess of horse-rad- 
 ish" had made him as sick as a dog — sicker 
 than twenty dogs, for he was not quite sure 
 that he should live the day out, or ever hear 
 the sound of his natural voice again. " How 
 everybody will be disappointed to-night, Bax- 
 ter I" he had said with a sigh ; " not a note of 
 mine to be heard anywhere. Good gord ! what a 
 blow to business, and to all the Halls !" 
 
 He was looking very miserable by Katie's 
 side, and my sister was evidently having all the 
 conversation to herself, and doing all the con- 
 solation ; with Tilly Beaufort regarding the 
 couple over the shoulder of her partner in a 
 waltz, with a less amiaWe expression than might 
 
 VOL. I. U
 
 290 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 have been expected from a naturally good- 
 tempered countenance. 
 
 I was standing apart from the pic-nic, under 
 the shadow of the trees, when an old lady who 
 had been one of the party, and whose grey hairs 
 had been a contrast to much youth and good 
 looks about her, startled me by a few words in 
 my ear. She had been very busy packing the 
 glass into the hampers near me, but I had not 
 noticed her till then. 
 
 " T don't think you are enjoying yourself, 
 young lady," she said. 
 
 " Oh, yes, I am," I hastened to reply. 
 
 " You are frightened of them?" 
 
 " N — no," I answered, after a moment's con- 
 sideration of the question, *' I am not frightened, 
 but I do not quite like their ways." 
 
 " Yet you are often at the music-halls with 
 your friend Miss Baskerville." 
 
 *' Yes," I said. 
 
 " You have been frightened before to-day — 
 may I ask if you are a lady ?" 
 
 " No," I said, smiling. 
 
 " I mean a lady born."
 
 I EXACT THE CHAMPIOX. 291 
 
 "No," I said again. 
 
 "You do not understand them or care for 
 them, I'm sure," she said, as she continued her 
 packing ; " if I were you, I would not stop with 
 them. Can't you get a situation somewhere, 
 and leave this life behind you?" 
 
 " Is it not an honest life ?" I asked quickly ; 
 " do you know that it is not ?" 
 
 " There are good and bad amongst them — 
 many hard-working ones," she replied, as she 
 went on with her packing ; " not a few whom 
 you should naturally despise — all kinds of people 
 to suit all kinds of tastes, except the taste for a 
 simple life and quiet home. My dear young 
 lady, I'm your senior by many years ; take an 
 old woman's advice, and follow your natural in- 
 clination to escape." 
 
 •' It is not fit " 
 
 "For any young girl .- Emphatically no." 
 
 She broke a tumbler over her emphasis, ap- 
 peared a little scared at the damage which she 
 had committed, looked round for ^Ir. Baxter, 
 and then secretly threw away the broken frag- 
 ments amongst the glass. 
 
 u2
 
 292 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 " What is your post at the Hall of Harmony ?" 
 I asked. 
 
 '* I am not at the Hall of Harmony. My 
 name is Saville, and I am Miss Beaufort's 
 dresser." 
 
 " I understand." 
 
 " I was Miss Baskerville's dresser once, but 
 nothing satisfied the girl." 
 
 " But — -" 
 
 " But please don't mention this ; I might lose 
 my situation, and I am old and poor. I was a 
 lady once, and so I have never quite got used to 
 this. Neither will you ; these aristocratic Beau- 
 forts and Baskervilles," she said scornfully, *' are 
 very good people of their kind, but get away 
 from them as soon as you can." 
 
 " You do not know anything against them 1" 
 
 "Not a word — not of those two — save that 
 they are fast and flippant ; but it would not do 
 you any harm to drop their acquaintance, I'm 
 thinking." 
 
 She caught up a small basket of wine-glasses, 
 and walked away with it. I looked after her 
 with a sinking heart, and a desire to follow and
 
 I EXACT THE CBL^MPIOX. 293 
 
 cross-examine her, with the old horror of this 
 life coming once more to the front to scare me. 
 The woman who had been a lady walked with 
 vacillating steps ; once went erratically to the 
 left, paused, and then went to the right, where 
 some more subordinates were busy over hampers. 
 She had been drinking, hence her freedom of 
 speech and general eccentricity of manner ; but 
 the woman in her drink seemed to have shown 
 an interest in me, and given me fresh warning 
 — even a warning, partly implied, that my sister 
 was a dangerous acquaintance ! She had not 
 observed the likeness between Katie and me, as 
 Mr. Baxter had done, but she had spoken with 
 a startling frankness. 
 
 More fast and furious became the revel with 
 the lengthening shadows on the grass ; I could 
 tell easily enough, as I wandered sadly to and 
 fro, who were the black sheep of the flock, now 
 that all self-restraint had vanished, and wine 
 had betrayed them, as it had done even the old 
 woman, who had been born a lady. The vacuous 
 young men looked more vacuous still ; the best 
 of them were drunk and prostrate, and the worst
 
 294 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 were noisy and obtrusive, having the looks and 
 manners of satyrs. 
 
 Many pedestrians through the park gave the 
 screaming revellers a wider berth, and the occu- 
 pants of passing carriages surveyed us curious- 
 ly, and wondered who we were that made the 
 bright day hideous. 
 
 Suddenly there was more noise and shrill 
 laughter than I had hitherto heard, and a well- 
 dressed girl, pale with fright, ran hurriedly by, 
 followed by a dozen men and women screaming 
 after her, pelting her with little tufts of grass 
 and bon-bons, till she stopped suddenly and 
 faced them almost defiantly. The look with 
 which she confronted them would have become 
 an older child, and would have abashed less 
 foolish people than those who now joined 
 hands and commenced a maniacal dance round 
 her. 
 
 " How dare you frighten me f she cried, very 
 pale still, but very indignant with her perse- 
 cutors ; "you are not ladies and gentlemen, or 
 you would never do it. My papa will not let me
 
 I ENACT THE CHAMPION. 295 
 
 be treated like this. You shall be punished, 
 every one of you." 
 
 "No, we're not ladies and gentlemen, little 
 Miss Minx," said a bold-faced girl whom I had 
 seen in the ballet at the Hall of Harmony ; " but 
 we shall be very happy to make your father's 
 acquaintance, and we shan't let you go till we 
 like. You said you wouldn't drink our healths, 
 and that was not polite, my dear." 
 
 " She shall kiss one of us instead — hie — and 
 then we'll let her go — one of the no-gentlemen 
 lot — hooray ! — whoop ! — which is it to be, my 
 old-fashioned chick ?" 
 
 The man who had delivered this was a short, 
 thick-set man, with a stubby beard — an opposi- 
 tion comic to the great Pounce, and one whom 
 I had heard sing occasionally. He was very 
 drunk, and very horrible in his drink. I forgot 
 all reserve in my concern for the child, and broke 
 hastily through the circle. 
 
 " Please do not insult her," I said, taking her 
 hand ; " you should know better than that, at 
 least." 
 
 My face was familiar to them, and the indigna-
 
 296 LITTLE KATE KIRBT. 
 
 tion therein was so very strongly expressed that 
 a few of the most timid dropped hands at once, 
 and regarded me with surprise. I felt the little 
 hot hand of the child close upon mine nervously 
 but trustfully, and two big blue eyes looked 
 quickly up at me with a wistful gaze. 
 
 " Thank you very much," she said ; " and 
 please take me to my papa." 
 
 " Where is he f 
 
 " Coming to meet me, over there," she said, 
 pointing in the direction of Teddington. " Please 
 take me from these people." 
 
 There was a spirit of opposition manifested, 
 but I endeavoured to subdue it. I am sure that 
 I lost my temper in the effort ; I who had a 
 supreme conceit in my own amiability before 
 this! My passion overmastered me at last, 
 and upon future reflection astonished even my- 
 self. 
 
 " I don't think it's any business of yours to 
 interfere," said the girl whom I had already in- 
 dicated ; *' it's only a bit of fun, and you ought 
 to be able to see that, if the child can't." 
 
 " I don't see any fun in it," I replied.
 
 I EXACT THE CHAMPION. 297 
 
 " You're not everybody, just because you are 
 Miss Baskerville's fiiend, you know," cried the 
 ballet-girl, tauntingly. " This stuck-up little 
 child talked to us first, and we had a bit of a 
 game, that's all." 
 
 " And she isn't going without she kisses one 
 of us. I say it. Jack Chowl, of the North-West 
 London," cried the comic man, reeling towards 
 her amidst the laughter of the rest. " Here, 
 ^iss Thingamy, come and kiss your best friend, 
 aftd makeit up. Then you can go — not be- 
 fore." 
 
 Everybody around us saw something to laugh 
 and scream at in this, or in the child's fright, as 
 she clung to the skirts of my dress and hid her 
 face away. 
 
 " Will you stand aside, you cowards V I cried 
 passionately ; and as I moved on with the child 
 they fell back, and allowed me to pass them. 
 
 " Oh, where is my papa ?" the child exclaim- 
 ed ; " how late he is ! — why don't he come to 
 help me ?" 
 
 " You are quite safe with me," I said assur- 
 ingly.
 
 298 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 *' You don't look very strong," she replied, 
 " and there are so many of these dreadful 
 people about." 
 
 " They will not molest us." 
 
 In my heart I was not quite certain, for Mr. 
 Chowl, of the North-West London Music Hall, 
 came in an unsteady manner after us. I looked 
 for help from Katie, even from Tommy Pounce 
 the Colossal, but they were strolling far in ad- 
 vance of me along the path I was pursuing, and 
 I was beyond their assistance. I glanced ner- 
 vously round for Mr. Baxter, but he was not in 
 sight, and there was no one else to whom I 
 could appeal, or who would not laugh at me. 
 
 We went on a few more yards unmolested, 
 then I felt the girl's hand tighten in mine. 
 
 " Oh, he's running after us — the dreadful little 
 drunken man ! You'll take care of me, my kind 
 lady, will you not ?" 
 
 " You are perfectly safe," I said again. I 
 could not believe in any direct insult, and I 
 relied on the protection of the most manly 
 and most womanly of the party. I wished to 
 avoid a scene if possible, and as the child gave
 
 I EXACT THE CHAMPION. 299 
 
 a faint scream, I urged her to be silent. By this 
 time Mr. Chowl had reached our side, and was 
 trying to keep step vdih. us as we walked 
 rapidly towards the gate opening into Ted- 
 dington. 
 
 " Look here now," said he, as his legs describ- 
 ed small segments of circles and his feet re- 
 volved one over another in that odd manner 
 peculiar to drunkards, " when I say a shiug I 
 stick to it. Jack Chowl's my name — everybody 
 knows it — and the Orl of 'Armony ain't a-going 
 to crow over me, or anyborry 'nected with it. 
 There's not one of 'em can sing — and that's 
 what I say. I wouldn't — I wouldn't hm'ta'air 
 of child's head, but it's a biro' fun — pure fun, 
 'sure you. I said that this — hie — little gal sh'd 
 gie me kiss, and when say shing, Jack Chowl, 
 Nor-West, means a shing. Take mehand, 
 medear." 
 
 He made one or two futile efforts to take hold 
 of the child's hand, but I transferred her quickly 
 from the left to the right side of me, interposing 
 myself between them. He was not to be balk- 
 ed, however. He endeavoured to pass behind
 
 300 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 me in his drunken persistency, but at the same 
 moment a strong hand clutched him by the 
 collar of his coat, and hurled him with so much 
 force and velocity away from us that I, who had 
 been reserving my stock of screams for a future 
 emergency, could not prevent one from suddenly 
 escaping me, as Mr. Chowl went spinning off at 
 a rapid rate until he fell of a heap in the grass, 
 whence he moved not again. 
 
 " Papa !" the child called out, and then to my 
 further surprise she let go my hand, and fainted 
 away. 
 
 "Esther — Ettie, dear — keep strong — all is 
 well now." But the child lay senseless in the 
 arms of the father, a tall, thin, dark-skinned 
 man, whose stern face I did not recognise im- 
 mediately in my concern for his daughter. 
 
 " What can I do — can I be of any assistance ?" 
 I inquired. 
 
 " No — thank you. She is subject to these 
 swoons," he said hurriedly, as he rose with his 
 child in his arms — '' she has been excited — my 
 carriage is close at hand — thank you, young 
 lady — if you will follow me, I will see that that
 
 I EXACT THE CHAMPION. 301 
 
 party of mountebanks do not insult you for your 
 kindness to my child." 
 
 " Thank you," I murmured in a low voice. 
 
 But I did not follow him. I was not afraid 
 of molestation — I was one of the party myself 
 — and I had recognised him at last. It was he 
 who had supported me in a fainting fit of my 
 own, at the offices of Westmair and Co., in 
 Watling Street. It was Abel Westmair, the 
 principal of the firm, the hard-hearted, merci- 
 less man who had been the cause of all our 
 troubles by locking up my father for felony. 
 
 I looked after him, as he strode rapidly away, 
 unconscious that I was not following him, and 
 holding to his breast the little girl whom excite- 
 ment had suddenly prostrated. It was all very 
 like a dream — his coming in the midst of it, a 
 more unreal and dream-like situation still. I 
 was glad that he had not remembered me, or 
 asked me any questions — that he had passed 
 away once more from my life, which he had 
 helped to oppress and darken. I could not take 
 my eyes from him until he was lost in the 
 distance, and the noisy laughter of the mounte-
 
 302 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. 
 
 banks, as he had termed them, seemed approach- 
 ing more closely. The party were mustering 
 for departure ; they were picking up Mr. Chowl 
 and trying to make him understand that they 
 must put him inside one of the omnibuses, or 
 leave him in the park. The vehicles had ar- 
 rived to convey us to town. The ballet-girl 
 with whom I had waged war was pointing me 
 out to a few select friends and regarding me 
 disdainfully. The hampers had been stowed 
 away. The choice young men, the lord's son 
 amongst their number, had lighted fresh cigars 
 and taken parting drinks. Katie, Tommy 
 Pounce, and Mr. Baxter had risen as if from the 
 dead about me. They were beginning to clus- 
 ter on the roofs of the coaches and omnibuses, 
 and to fill Tommy Pounce's drag, and there 
 was much hilarity under the wide-spreading 
 chestnuts. 
 
 Still I stood there as in a trance, watching 
 and wondering deeply, until Katie came softly 
 behind me, took me by the arms, and shook me 
 playfully. 
 
 " What, dreaming again, Faith I I hope you
 
 I ENACT THE CHAMPIOX. 303 
 
 have enjoyed yourself, and spent as pleasant a 
 day as I have done." 
 
 She had heard and seen nothing of the 
 incident that had disturbed me, and I did not 
 care to tell her of it then. I thought rather of 
 her own life and mystery, as her brown eyes 
 looked tenderly into mine. 
 
 " It has been a fine day fortunately," I an- 
 swered in an evasive manner; "but you did 
 not want me, Katie, after all." 
 
 " No, he did not care enough for me to come," 
 she said, " and so much the better. Whose loss 
 is it? Not little Kate Kirby's surely." 
 
 EXD OF THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 LOXDON : PRINTED BY MACDONALD A>T) TUGWELL, BLENHEIM HOUSE.
 
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