"What should put such a thought in your head, la.s.s? You know I like you and Harry better than any one in the world. We are like three brothers.

It is not likely I should like Alice Merton, whom I only see once a month, better than you. She is very kind, very pleasant, very bright.

She treats me as an equal and I would do anything for her, but she couldn't be the same as you are, no one can. Perhaps," he said, "years on--for you know that I have always said that I should not marry till I'm thirty, that's what my good friend told me more than ten years ago--I shall find some one I shall like as well as you, but that will be in a different way, and you will be married years and years before that. Let me think, you are nearly seventeen, Nelly?" The girl nodded, her face was turned the other way. "Yes, you are above a year younger than I am. Some girls marry by seventeen; I wonder no one has been after you already, Nelly; there is no girl in the village to compare with you."

But Nelly, without a word, darted away at full speed up the lane towards home, leaving Jack speechless with astonishment. "She hasn't done that for years," he said; "it's just the way she used to do when we were first friends. If she got in a temper about anything she would rush away and hide herself and cry for hours. What could I have said to vex her, about her marrying, or having some one courting her; there couldn't be anything in that to vex her." Jack thought for some time, sitting upon a stile the better to give his mind to it. Finally he gave up the problem in despair, grumbling to himself, "One never gets to understand girls; here I've known Nelly for the last seven years like a sister, and there she flies away crying--I am sure she was crying, because she always used to cry when she ran away--and what it is about I have not the least idea. Now I mustn't say anything about it when I meet her next, I know that of old, unless she does first, but as likely as not she will never allude to it."

In fact no allusion ever was made to the circ.u.mstance, for before the following Sunday came round John Hardy had died. He had been sinking for months, and his death had been looked for for some time. It was not a blow to his daughter, and could hardly be a great grief, for he had been a drunken, worthless man, caring nothing for his child, and frequently brutally a.s.saulting her in his drunken fits. She had attended him patiently and a.s.siduously for months, but no word of thanks had ever issued from his lip. His character was so well known that no one regarded his death as an event for which his daughter should be pitied.

It would, however, effect a change in her circ.u.mstances. Hardy had, ever since the attack upon the Vaughan, received an allowance from the union, as well as from the sick club to which he belonged, but this would now cease; and it was conjectured by the neighbours that "th' old ooman would have to go into the house, and Nelly would go into a factory at Birmingham or Wolverhampton, or would go into service." Nelly's mother was a broken woman; years of intemperance had prematurely aged her, and her enforced temperance during the last few months had apparently broken her spirit altogether, and the coa.r.s.e, violent woman had almost sunk into quiet imbecility.

CHAPTER XXII.

THE SOLUTION.

Among others who talked over Nelly Hardy's future were Mr. and Mrs.

Dodgson. They were very fond of her, for from the first she had been the steadiest and most industrious of the young girls of the place, and by diligent study had raised herself far in advance of the rest. She had too been always so willing and ready to oblige and help that she was a great favourite with both.

"I have been thinking," Mrs. Dodgson said to her husband on the evening of the day of John Hardy's death, "whether, as Miss Bolton, the a.s.sistant mistress, is going to leave at the end of the month, to be married, Nelly Hardy would not make an excellent successor for her.

There is no doubt she is fully capable of filling the situation; her manners are all that could be wished, and she has great influence with the younger children. The only drawback was her disreputable old father.

It would hardly have done for my a.s.sistant to appear in school in the morning with a black eye, and for all the children to know that her drunken father had been beating her. Now he is gone that objection is at an end. She and her mother, who has been as bad as the father, but is now, I believe, almost imbecile, could live in the little cottage Miss Bolton occupies."

"I think it would be an excellent plan, my dear, excellent; we could have no one we should like better, or who could be a more trustworthy and helpful a.s.sistant to you. By all means let it be Nelly Hardy. I will go up and speak to Mr. Brook to-morrow. As he is our patron I must consult him, but he will agree to anything we propose. Let us say nothing about it until you tell her yourself after the funeral."

Mrs. Dodgson saw Nelly Hardy several times in the next few days, and went in and sat with her as she worked at her mourning; but it was not until John Hardy was laid in the churchyard that she opened the subject.

"Come up in the morning, my dear," she had said that day; "I want to have a talk with you."

On the following morning Nelly, in her neatly-fitting black mourning dress, made her appearance at the school-house, after breakfast, a quarter of an hour before school began.

"Sit down, my dear," Mrs. Dodgson said, "I have some news to give you which will, I think, please you. Of course you have been thinking what to do?"

"Yes, 'm; I have made up my mind to try and get work in a factory."

"Indeed! Nelly," Mrs. Dodgson said, surprised; "I should have thought that was the last thing that you would like."

"It is not what I like," Nelly said quietly, "but what is best. I would rather go into service, and as I am fond of children and used to them, I might, with your kind recommendation, get a comfortable situation; but in that case mother must go to the house, and I could not bear to think of her there. She is very helpless, and of late she has come to look to me, and would be miserable among strangers. I could earn enough at a factory to keep us both, living very closely."

"Well, Nelly, your decision does you honour, but I think my plan is better. Have you heard that Miss Bolton is going to leave us?"

"I have heard she was engaged to be married some day, 'm, but I did not know the time was fixed."

"She leaves at the end of this month, that is in a fortnight, and her place has already been filled up. Upon the recommendation of myself and Mr. Dodgson, Mr. Brook has appointed Miss Nelly Hardy as her successor."

"Me!" exclaimed Nelly, rising with a bewildered air. "Oh, Mrs. Dodgson, you cannot mean it?"

"I do, indeed, Nelly. Your conduct here has been most satisfactory in every way, you have a great influence with the children, and your attainments and knowledge are amply sufficient for the post of my a.s.sistant. You will, of course, have Miss Bolton's cottage, and can watch over your mother. You will have opportunities for studying to fit yourself to take another step upwards, and become a head-mistress some day."

Mrs. Dodgson had continued talking, for she saw that Nelly was too much agitated and overcome to speak.

"Oh, Mrs. Dodgson," she sobbed, "how can I thank you enough?"

"There are no thanks due, my dear. Of course I want the best a.s.sistant I can get, and I know of no one upon whom I can rely more thoroughly than yourself. You have no one but yourself to thank, for it is your good conduct and industry alone which have made you what you are, and that under circ.u.mstances of the most unfavourable kind. But there is the bell ringing for school. I suppose I may tell Mr. Brook that you accept the situation; the pay, thirty pounds a year and the cottage, is not larger, perhaps, than you might earn at a factory, but I think--"

"Oh, Mrs. Dodgson," Nelly said, smiling through her tears, "I accept, I accept. I would rather live on a crust of bread here than work in a factory, and if I had had the choice of everything I should prefer this."

Mr. Dodgson here came in, shook Nelly's hand and congratulated her, and with a happy heart the girl took her way home.

Jack, upon his return from the pit, found Nelly awaiting him at the corner where for years she had stood. He had seen her once since her father's death, and had pressed her hand warmly to express his sympathy, but he was too honest to condole with her on a loss which was, he knew, a relief. He and Harry had in the intervening time talked much of Nelly's prospects. Jack was averse in the extreme to her going into service, still more averse to her going into a factory, but could suggest no alternative plan.

"If she were a boy," he said, "it would be easy enough. I am getting eighteen shillings a week now, and could let her have five easily, and she might take in dressmaking. There are plenty of people in the villages round would be glad to get their dresses made; but she would have to live till she got known a bit, and you know she wouldn't take my five shillings. I wouldn't dare offer it to her. Now if it was you there would be no trouble at all; you would take it, of course, just as I should take it of you, but she wouldn't, because she's a la.s.s--it beats me altogether. I might get mother to offer her the money, but Nelly would know it was me sharp enough, and it would be all the same."

"I really think that Nelly might do well wi' dressmaking," Harry said after a pause. "Here all the la.s.ses ha' learnt to work, but, as you say, in the other villages they know no more than we did here three years back; if we got some bills printed and sent 'em round, I should say she might do. There are other things you don't seem to ha' thought on, Jack," he said hesitatingly. "You're only eighteen yet, but you are earning near a pound a week, and in another two or three years will be getting man's pay, and you are sure to rise. Have you never thought of marrying Nelly?"

Jack jumped as if he had trodden on a snake.

"I marry Nelly!" he said in astonishment. "What! I marry Nelly! are you mad, Harry? You know I have made up my mind not to marry for years, not till I'm thirty and have made my way; and as to Nelly, why I never thought of her, nor of any other la.s.s in that way; her least of all; why, she is like my sister. What ever put such a ridiculous idea in your head? Why, at eighteen boys haven't left school and are looking forward to going to college; those boy and girl marriages among our cla.s.s are the cause of half our troubles. Thirty is quite time enough to marry.

How Nelly would laugh if she knew what you'd said!"

"I should advise you not to tell her," Harry said dryly; "I greatly mistake if she would regard it as a laughing matter at all."

"No, la.s.ses are strange things," Jack meditated again. "But, Harry, you are as old as I am, and are earning the same wage; why don't you marry her?"

"I would," Harry said earnestly, "to-morrow if she'd have me."

"You would!" Jack exclaimed, as much astonished as by his friend's first proposition. "To think of that now! Why, you have always been with her just as I have. You have never shown that you cared for her, never given her presents, nor walked with her, nor anything. And do you really care for her, Harry?"

"Aye," Harry said shortly, "I have cared for her for years."

"And to think that I have never seen that!" Jack said. "Why didn't you tell me? Why, you are as difficult to understand as she is, and I thought I knew you so well!"

"What would have been the use?" Harry said. "Nelly likes me as a friend, that's all."

"That's it," Jack said. "Of course when people are friends they don't think of each other in any other way. Still, Harry, she may get to in time. Nelly's pretty well a woman, she's seventeen now, but she has no one else after her that I know of."

"Well, Jack, I fancy she could have plenty after her, for she's the prettiest and best girl o' the place; but you see, you are always about wi' her, and I think that most people think it will be a match some day."

"People are fools," Jack burst out wrathfully. "Who says so? just tell me who says so?"

"People say so, Jack. When a young chap and a la.s.s walk together people suppose there is something in it, and you and Nelly ha' been walking together for the last five years."

"Walking together!" Jack repeated angrily; "we have been going about together of course, and you have generally been with us, and often enough half-a-dozen others; that is not like walking together. Nelly knew, and every one knew, that we agreed to be friends from the day we stood on the edge of the old shaft when you were in the water below, and we have never changed since."

"I know you have never changed, Jack, never thought of Nelly but as a true friend. I did not know whether now you might think differently. I wanted to hear from your own lips. Now I know you don't, that you have no thought of ever being more than a true friend to her, I shall try if I cannot win her."

"Do," Jack said, shaking his friend's hand. "I am sure I wish you success. Nothing in the world would please me so much as to see my two friends marry, and though I do think, yes, I really do, Harry, that young marriages are bad, yet I am quite sure that you and Nelly would be happy together anyhow. And when do you mean to ask her?"