'Good-bye, my dear, good-bye!' said Master Puck and Miss Mab.

So Rosalie sorrowfully turned homewards, and struggled out through the surging mass of people. The conductor at the door pointed out to her a shorter way to the theatre caravan. She was glad to get out of the clanging sound of the Giant's Cave, from the platform of which a man was assuring the crowd that if only they would come to this show, they would be sure to come again that very evening, and would bring all their dearest friends with them.

Then the child went through a long covered bazaar, in which was a multitude of toys, wax dolls, wooden dolls, china dolls, composition dolls, rag dolls, and dolls of all descriptions; together with wooden horses, donkeys, elephants, and every kind of toy in which children delight. After this she came out upon a more open space, where a Happy Family was being displayed to an admiring throng.

It consisted of a large cage fastened to a cart, which was drawn by a comfortable-looking donkey. Inside the cage were various animals, living on the most friendly terms with each other--a little dog, in a smart coat, playing with several small white rats, a monkey hugging a little white kitten, a white cat, which had been dyed a brilliant yellow, superintending the sports of a number of mice and dormice; and a duck, a hen, and a guinea-pig, which were conversing together in one corner of the cage. Over this motley assembly was a board which announced that this Happy Family was supported entirely by voluntary contributions; and a woman was going about amongst the crowd shaking a tin plate at them, and crying out against their stinginess if they refused to contribute.

Rosalie passed the Happy Family with difficulty, and made her way down another street in the fair. On one side of her were shooting-galleries making a deafening noise, and on the other were all manner of contrivances for making money. First came machines for the trial of strength, consisting of a flat pasteboard figure of the Shah, or some other distinguished person, holding on his chest a dial-plate, the hand of which indicated the amount of strength possessed by any one who hit a certain part of the machine with all his might.

'Come now! have you seen the Shah?' cried the owner of one of these machines. 'Come now, try your strength! I believe you're the strongest fellow that has passed by to-day! Come now, let's see what you can do!'

The required penny was paid, and there followed a tremendous blow, a tinkling of bells on the pasteboard figure, and an announcement from the owner of the show of the number of stones which the man had moved.

Then there were the weighing-machines, arm-chairs covered with red velvet, in which you were invited to sit and be weighed; there was the sponge-dealer, a Turk in a turban, who confided to the crowd, in broken English, not only the price of his sponges, but also many touching and interesting details of his personal history. There was also the usual gathering of professional beggars, some without arms and legs, others deaf, or dumb, or blind, or all three; cripples and imbeciles and idiots, who go from fair to fair and town to town, and get so much money that they make five or six shillings a day, and live in luxury all the year round.

The child went quickly past them all, and came upon the region of whirligigs, four or five of which were at work, and were whirling in different directions, and made her feel so dizzy that she hardly knew where she was going.

Oh, how glad she was to see her own caravan again!--to get safely out of the restless, noisy multitude, out of the sound of the shouting of the show-people and the swearing of the drunken men and women, and out of the pushing and jostling of the crowd. She thought to herself, as she went up the caravan steps, that if she had her own way she would never go near a fair again; and oh, how she wondered that the people who had their own way came to it in such numbers!

Toby was looking anxiously for her from the caravan window.

'Miss Rosie dear,' he said, 'I thought you were never coming; I got quite frightened about you; you're such a little mite of a thing to go fighting your own way in that great big crowd.'

'Oh, Toby,' said Rosalie, 'I haven't seen Mother Manikin!' and she told him what she had heard from the giant of Mother Manikin's prospects.

'I am sorry,' said Toby. 'Then you have had all your walk for nothing?'

'Yes,' said the child; 'and I never mean to go through the fair again if I can possibly help it--never again!'

CHAPTER XIV

BETSEY ANN

There was still some time before Rosalie need dress herself for the play.

She sat still after Toby had left her, thinking over all she had seen in the fair; and it made her very sad indeed. There were such a number of lies being told--she knew there were; such a number of things were being passed off for what they really were not. And then, after all, even if the shows were what they pretended to be, what a poor miserable way it seemed of trying to be happy! The child wondered how many in that moving multitude were really happy.

Rosalie was thinking about this when she heard a sound close to her, a very different sound from the shouting of the cheap-jacks or the noisy proclamations of the showmen. It was the sound of singing. She went to the door of the caravan and looked out. The little theatre was set up at the edge of the fair. Close to the street, and very near the caravan,--so near that Rosalie could hear all they said,--was standing a group of men. One of them had just given out a hymn, and he and all the rest were singing it.

The child could hear every word of it distinctly. There was a chorus at the end of each verse, which came so often, that before the hymn was finished she knew it quite perfectly--

'Whosoever will, whosoever will; Sound the proclamation over vale and hill; 'Tis a loving Father calls His children home: Whosoever will may come!'

By the time that they had finished the first verse of the hymn, a great crowd had collected round the men, attracted perhaps by the contrast between that sweet, solemn hymn, and the din and tumult in every other part of the fair.

Then one of the men began to speak.

'Friends,' he said--and as he spoke a great stillness fell on the listening crowd--'Friends, I have an invitation for you to-night; will you listen to my invitation? You are being invited in all directions to-night. Each man invites you to his own show, and tells you that it is the best one in the fair. Each time you pass him, he calls out to you, "Come! come! Come now!

Now's your time!"

'My friends, I too have an invitation for you to-night. I too would say to you, "Come! come! Come now! Now's your time!" Jesus Christ, my friends, has sent me with this invitation to you. He wants you to _come_. He says, "Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden." He wants you to come now. He says, "Come _now_, let us reason together; though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." He says to you, "Now is your time."

"Behold," He says, "now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation."

'My friends, this is the invitation; but it is a very different one from the one that man is giving at that show over there. What does he say to those people who are listening to him just now? Does he say, "Here's my show; the door is open, any one who likes may walk in; there's nothing to pay"? Does he say that, my friends? Does he ever give his invitation in that way? No, my friends; he always follows up his "Come, come now! now's your time!" with some such words as these, "Only twopence; only twopence; only twopence to pay! Come now!" And, if you do not produce your twopence, will he let you in?--if you are so poor that you have not twopence in the world, will he say to you, "Come, come now! now's your time"? No, my friends, that he will not.

'Now, the Lord Jesus Christ invites you quite differently. He cries out, "Ho! every one that thirsteth, Come. Come without money! Come without price! Whosoever will may come!" Yes, my friends, the words "Whosoever will" are written over the door which the Lord Jesus Christ wants you to enter. This is one way in which His invitation is quite different from that which that man is giving from the door of the show.

'We will sing another verse of the hymn, and then I will tell you the other great difference between the two invitations.'

So again they sang--

'Whosoever will, whosoever will; Sound the proclamation over vale and hill; 'Tis a loving Father calls His children home; Whosoever will may come!'

My friends,' said the speaker, when the verse was finished, 'there was once in Russia a very curious palace.

It was built of nothing but ice. The walls were ice, and the roof was ice, and all the furniture was ice. There were ice sofas, ice chairs, ice fireplaces, ice ornaments. The water was made different colours, and then frozen, so that everything looked real and solid. At night the palace was lighted up, and it shone and sparkled as if it were set with diamonds.

Every one said, "What a beautiful palace!"

'But it did not last, my friends, it did not last. The thaw came, and the ice palace faded away; there was soon nothing left of it but a pool of dirty water. It was all gone; it was very fine for a time; but there was nothing solid in it, and it melted away like a dream.

'My friends, yonder in that fair is the world's ice-palace! It sparkles, it glitters, it looks very fine; but it isn't solid, it won't last. To-morrow it will all be over; it will have melted away like a dream. Nothing will be left but dust, and dirt, and misery. There will be many aching heads and aching hearts this time to-morrow.

'My friends, the world's grandest display is a very disappointing thing after all. And this is the second way in which the Lord Jesus Christ's invitation is so different from that of the man at that show-door. When the Lord Jesus Christ says "Come," He has always something good to give, something that is solid, something that will last, something that will not disappoint you. He has pardon to give you, He has peace to give you, He has heaven to give you. All these are good gifts, all these are solid, all these will last, not one of them will disappoint you.

'Oh, will you come to Him, my friends? He calls to you "Come! come now!"

Now's your time! There's room now, there's plenty of room now! Yet there is room; to-morrow it may be too late!

'Will you not come to Him to-night?

'"Whosoever cometh need not delay; Now the door is open: enter while you may; Jesus is the true, the only living way; Whosoever will may come.

'"Whosoever will, whosoever will; Sound the proclamation over vale and hill; 'Tis a loving Father calls His children home; Whosoever will may come!"'

'Rosalie' said her father's voice, 'be quick and get ready' and Rosalie had to close the caravan door and dress for the play. But the hymn and the sermon were treasured up in the child's heart, and were never forgotten by her.

That was the last fair which Augustus Joyce visited that year. The cold weather was coming on; already there had been one or two severe frosts, and the snow had come beating down the caravan chimney, almost extinguishing the little fire.

Augustus thought it was high time that he sought for winter quarters; and, having made an engagement in a low town theatre for the winter months, he determined to go to the town at once, and dismiss his company until the spring.

On the road to the town they passed many other caravans, all bound on the same errand, coming like swallows to a warmer clime.

Rosalie's father went first to an open space or stable-yard, where the caravans were stowed away for the winter. Here he left Rosalie for some time, whilst he went to look for lodgings in the town. Then he and the men removed from the caravans the things which they would need, and carried them to their new quarters. When all was arranged, Augustus told the child to follow him, and led the way through the town.

How Rosalie wondered to what kind of a place she was going! They went down several streets, wound in and out of different squares and courts, and the child had to run every now and then to keep up with her father's long strides. At last they came to a winding street full of tall, gloomy houses, before one of which her father stopped and knocked at the door. Some ragged children, without shoes or stockings, were sitting on the steps, and moved off as Rosalie and her father came up.

The door was opened by a girl about fifteen years old, with a miserable, careworn face, and dressed in an untidy, torn frock, which had lost all its hooks, and was fastened with large white pins.