The sunbeams were streaming in through the small window, and falling on the bed. And there lay his wife, so pale, so ghastly, so still, that Augustus Joyce drew back in horror. And there, with her arms round her mother's neck, and the wreath of roses fallen from her hair on her mother's pillow, lay little Rosalie, fast asleep, with the traces of tears still on her cheeks. Intense sleep and weariness had taken possession of her, and she had fallen asleep on her mother's bed, in her white dress, just as she had been acting at the play.

Augustus drew nearer to his wife, and sat down beside her. Yes, she was dead; there was no doubt of that. The kind words could never be spoken, she would never hear him again, he could never show his love to her now,--never cherish her more. 'Till death us do part.' It _had_ parted them now, parted them for ever. It was too late for Augustus Joyce to make any amends; too late for him to do anything to appease his conscience.

When Rosalie awoke, she found herself being lifted from the bed by her father, and carried into the other caravan. There he laid her on his own bed and went out, shutting the door behind him.

And the next few days seemed like one long dreary night to Rosalie. Of the inquest and the preparations for the funeral she knew nothing. She seemed like one in a dream. The fair went on all around her, and the noise and racket made her more and more miserable. What she liked best was to hear the dull roaring of the sea, after the naphtha lights were out and all in the fair was still.

For, somehow, with the roaring of the waves the fishermen's song came back to her--

'So keep up heart and courage, friends!

For home is just in sight; And who will heed, when safely there, The perils of the night?'

And, somehow--Rosalie hardly knew why--that song comforted and soothed her.

CHAPTER XIII

VANITY FAIR

'Miss Rosie dear, can I speak to you?' said Toby's voice, the day before the funeral.

'Yes; come in, Toby,' said the child mournfully.

'I should like to see you, Miss Rosie,' said Toby mysteriously. 'You won't be offended, will you? but I brought you this.'

Then followed a great fumbling in Toby's pockets, and from the depths of one of them was produced a large red pocket-handkerchief, from which, when he had undone the various knots, he took out most carefully a little parcel, which he laid on Rosalie's knee.

'It's only a bit of black, Miss Rosie dear,' he said. 'I thought you could put it on to-morrow; and you mustn't mind my seeing after it; there was no one to do it but me.'

And before Rosalie could thank him, he was gone.

When she opened the parcel, she found in it a piece of broad black ribbon, and a little black silk handkerchief--the best poor Toby could obtain.

Rosalie's tears fell afresh as she fastened the ribbon on her hat, to be ready for the sorrowful service on the morrow.

The fair was nearly over, yet some of the shows lingered and there were still crowds of children round the whirligigs and shooting-galleries when the mournful procession went by. The children at first drew back in astonishment; it was an unexpected sight, a coffin on the fair-ground. But astonishment soon gave way to curiosity, and they crowded round the little band of mourners, and followed them nearly to the cemetery.

Augustus went through the service with an unmoved face. Conscience had been making its final appeal the last few days, and had made one last and mighty effort to arouse Augustus Joyce to repentance. But he had stifled conscience, suppressed it, trampled on it, extinguished it. God's Holy Spirit had been resisted and quenched already, and the conscience of the impenitent sinner was 'seared as with a hot iron!'

All the company of the theatre followed Augustus Joyce's wife to the grave, and more than one of them felt unusually moved as they looked at little sorrowful Rosalie walking by her father's side. She was quite calm and quiet, and never shed a tear until the service was over, and she was walking through the quiet cemetery a little behind the rest of the party.

Then her eyes fell upon Toby, who was walking near her with an air of real heartfelt sorrow on his honest face. He had tied a piece of crape round his hat and a black handkerchief round his neck, out of respect for his late mistress and for his mistress's little daughter.

Something in the curious way in which the crape was fastened on, something in the thought of the kindly heart which had planned this token of sympathy, touched Rosalie, and brought tears to her eyes for the first time on that sorrowful day.

For sometimes, when a groat sorrow is so strong as to shut up with a firm hand those tears which would bring relief to the aching heart, a little thing, a very little thing,--perhaps only a flower which our lost one loved, or something she touched for the last time or spoke of on the last day; or, it may be, as with Rosalie, only a spark of kindly sympathy where we have scarcely looked for it, and an expression of feeling which was almost unexpected,--such a little thing as this will open in a moment the flood-gates of sorrow, and give us that relief for which we have been longing and yearning in vain.

So Rosalie found it; the moment her eyes rested on Toby's face and on Toby's bit of crape, she burst into a flood of tears, and was able to weep out the intenseness of her sorrow. And after that came a calm in her heart; for somehow she felt as if the angels' song was not yet over, as if they were still singing for joy over her mother's soul, and as if the Lord, the Good Shepherd, were still saying, 'Rejoice with Me, for I have found My sheep which was lost.'

Then they left the seaport town, and set off for a distant fair. And little Rosalie was very solitary in her caravan; everywhere and in everything she felt a sense of loss. Her father came occasionally to see her; but his visits were anything but agreeable, and she always felt relieved when he went away again to the other caravan. Thus the hours by day seemed long and monotonous, with no one inside the caravan to speak to, no one to care for or to nurse. She often climbed beside Toby and watched him driving, and spoke to him of the things which they passed by the way. But the hours by night were the longest of all, when the caravan was drawn up on a lonely moor, or in a thickly-wooded valley; when Rosalie was left alone through those long desolate hours, and there was no sound to be heard but the hooting of the owls and the soughing of the wind amongst the trees. Then indeed little Rosalie felt desolate; and she would kneel upon one of the boxes, and look out towards the other caravans, to be sure that they were near enough to hear her call to them if anything happened. Then she would kneel down and repeat her evening prayer again and again, and entreat the Good Shepherd to carry her in His arms, now that she was so lonely and had no mother.

But they soon arrived at the fair for which they were bound, the acting went on as usual, and Rosalie had once more to take her place on the stage.

Very dreary and dismal and tawdry everything seemed to her. Her little white dress, the dress in which she had lain by her mother's side, was soiled and tumbled, and the wreath of roses looked crushed and faded, as Rosalie took it from the box There was no mother to fasten it on her hair, no mother to cheer and comfort her as she went slowly up the theatre steps.

Her father was looking for her, and told her they were all waiting, and then the play commenced.

Rosalie's eyes wandered up and down the theatre, and she wondered how it was that when she was a very little girl she had thought it so beautiful.

It was just the same now as it had been then. The gilding was just as bright, the lamps were just as sparkling, the scenery had been repainted, and was even more showy and striking. Yet it all looked different to Rosalie. It seemed to her very poor and disappointing and paltry, as she looked at it from her place on the stage.

And then she thought of her mother, and of the different place in which she was spending that very evening. Rosalie had been reading about it that afternoon before she dressed herself for the play. She thought of the streets of gold on which her mother was walking--pure gold, not like the tinsel and gilt of the theatre; she thought of the white robe, clean and fair, in which her mother was dressed, so unlike her little tumbled, soiled frock; she thought of the new song her mother was singing, so different from the coarse, low songs that were being sung in the theatre; she thought of the music to which her mother was listening, the voice of harpers harping with their harps, and she thought how different it was from the noisy band close to her, and from the clanging music which her father's company was making. She thought, too, of the words which her mother was saying to the Good Shepherd, perhaps even then: 'Thou art worthy; for Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed me to God by Thy blood:' how different were these words from the silly, foolish, profane words she herself was repeating!

Oh, did her mother think of her? How little Rosalie wondered if she did!

And oh, how often she longed to be with her mother in the Golden City, instead of in the hot, wearying theatre!

And so the weeks went on; fair after fair was visited; her father's new play was repeated again and again, till it seemed very old to Rosalie; the theatre was set up and taken down, and all went on much as usual.

There was no change in the child's life, except that she had found a new occupation and pleasure. And this was teaching Toby to read.

'Miss Rosie,' he had said one day, 'I wish I could read the Testament!'

'Can't you read, Toby?'

'Not a word, missie; I only wish I could. I've not been what I ought to be, Miss Rosie; and I do want to do different. Will you teach me?'

And so it came to pass that Rosalie began to teach poor Toby to read. And after that she might often be seen perched on the seat beside Toby, with her Testament in her hand, pointing out one word after another to him as they drove slowly along. And when Toby was tired of reading, Rosalie would read to him some story out of the Bible. But the one they both loved best, and the one they read more often than any other, was the parable of the Lost Sheep. Rosalie was never tired of reading that, nor Toby of hearing it.

There was one thing for which Rosalie was very anxious, and that was to meet little Mother Manikin again. At every fair they visited she looked with eager eyes for the 'Royal Show of Dwarfs'; but they seemed to have taken a different circuit from that of the theatre party, for fair after fair went by without Rosalie's wish being gratified. But at length one afternoon, the last afternoon of the fair, Toby came running to the caravan with an eager face.

'Miss Rosie,' he said, 'I've just found the "Royal Show of Dwarfs." They're here, Miss Rosie; and as soon as I caught sight of the picture over the door, thinks I to myself, "Miss Rosie will be glad." So I went up to the door and spoke to the conductor (they've got a new one, Miss Rosie), and he said they were going to-night, so I ran off at once to tell you--I knew you would like to see little Mother Manikin again.'

'Oh dear!' said the child, 'I am glad.'

'You'll have to go at once, Miss Rosie; they're to start to-night the moment the performance is over; they're due at another fair to-morrow.'

'How was it that you didn't see the show before, Toby?'

'I don't know how it was, Miss Rosie, unless that it's at the very far end of the fair, and I haven't happened to be down that way before. Now, Miss Rosie dear, if you like I'll take you.'

'But I daren't leave the caravan, Toby, and father has the key; it wouldn't be safe, would it, with all these people about?'

'No' said Toby, as he looked down on the surging mass of people, 'I don't suppose it would; you'd have all your things stolen, Miss Rosie.'

'What shall I do?' said the child.

'Well, if you wouldn't mind going by yourself, Miss Rosie, I'll keep guard here.'

Rosalie looked rather fearfully at the dense crowd beneath her; she had never wandered about the fair, but had kept quietly in the caravan, as her mother had wished her to do so; she knew very little of what was going on in other parts of the ground.

'Where is it, Toby?' she asked.