"Dear me. You don't say so. What, are young ladies about 'ere learning it?" Mrs. Stubbs asked, with interest.

"Yes. I was dining at Lord Allington's last week, and in the evening one of his daughters played a violin solo; but she doesn't play nearly as well as Sarah," he replied.

"Then Sarah shall keep her violin and play to her 'eart's content," Mrs.

Stubbs cried enthusiastically. "That was what I wanted to ask you--if you thought I should encourage or discourage the child in keeping it up.

But, as you say so plainly encourage, I will; and Sarah shall 'ave good lessons as soon as she's fairly settled down at 'ome."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Then Sarah shall keep her violin and play to her 'eart's content."]

"That will be the greatest delight to Sarah, for the child loves her violin," said the vicar heartily; "and that is not all, Mrs.

Stubbs--but, if she goes on as she has begun, there will always be a useful, or at least a remunerative, accomplishment at her fingers'

ends."

"Oh, as to that," returned Mrs. Stubbs, with a lordly indifference to money such as told her visitor that she was well blessed with worldly goods, "Stubbs 'll provide for the child along with his own, and maybe her other uncles and aunts 'll do something for her, too. I will say that for _his_ family, as a family they're not mean. I will say that for 'em."

So Sarah's future was arranged. She was to go home with Mrs. Stubbs, who lived at South Kensington, and be one with her children. She was to have the best violin lessons to be had for love or money; and Mrs.

Stubbs, in the warmth of her kindly but vulgar heart, even went so far as to suggest that if Sarah was a very good, industrious girl, and got on well with her practising, her uncle might very likely be induced to buy her a new violin for her next birthday, instead of the dingy old thing she was playing on now.

Poor, well-meaning Mrs. Stubbs! She little knew that the whole of Sarah's grateful soul rose in loathing at the suggestion. She dropped her bow upon the nearest chair, and hugged her precious violin as closely to her breast as if it had been a thing of life, and that life was threatened.

"Oh, Auntie!" she burst out; "a new violin!"

"Yes, child; I think it's very likely," returned Mrs. Stubbs, delighted to see the effect of her suggestion upon her pale little niece, and quite mistaking the meaning of her emotion. "Your uncle is very fond of making nice presents. He gave May a new piano last Christmas."

"But," gasped Sarah, "my violin is a real Amati! It belonged to my grandfather."

"And if it did, what then?" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mrs. Stubbs, in no way impressed by the information. "All the more reason why you should 'ave a new one.

The wonder to me is you play half as well as you do on an old thing like that."

"It's--it's worth five hundred pounds!" Sarah cried, her face in a flame.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "It's--it's worth five hundred pounds!"]

Mrs. Stubbs fairly gasped in her surprise. "Sarah," she said, "what are you saying? Little girls ought not to tell stories; it's wicked. Do you know where you'll go to? Sarah, I'm shocked and surprised at you!"

"Auntie, dear," said Sarah, "it's true--all true. It is, indeed! Ask the doctor, ask the vicar--ask _any_ one who knows about violins, and they'll tell you! It's a real Amati; it's worth five hundred pounds--perhaps more. I'm not telling stories, Auntie, but Father was offered that much for it, only he wouldn't take it because he said it was all he had to give me, and that it would be worth more to me some day."

Never had Mrs. Stubbs heard Sarah say so much at one time before; but her earnest face and manner carried conviction with them, and she saw that the child knew what she was talking about, and was speaking only what she believed to be the truth.

"You really mean it, Sarah?" she asked, putting out a hand to touch the wonderful instrument.

"Oh, yes, Auntie, it's _absolutely_ true," returned Sarah, using the longest adjective she could think of the better to impress her aunt.

"Then," exclaimed the good lady, with radiant triumph, "you'd better 'old your tongue about it, Sarah, and not say a word about it--or you'll be 'aving the Probate people down on you, robbing the fatherless and the orphan."

CHAPTER IV

HER NEW HOME

At last Mr. Gray's affairs were all cleared up, and Sarah was about to leave dingy old Bridgehampton behind for ever to take up her new life in London, the great city of the world.

There were some very sad farewells to be made still; and Mrs. Stubbs was a woman of very good feeling, and encouraged the child to go and say good-bye to everybody who had been kind to her in the past.

"There is Mrs. Tracy," said Sarah on the last day. "She brought me all that fruit and jam and the other things, Auntie."

"Oh, you must go and say good-bye to 'er, of course," returned Mrs.

Stubbs; "and we must go and see your pore pa's grave, for 'eaven knows when you'll see it again."

"I should like to do that, please," said Sarah in a very low voice.

"Well, _I_ can't drag out all that way," remarked Mrs. Stubbs, who, being stout, was not good at walking exercise. "We'll have an open carriage if nurse can get one; and nurse shall go too."

So Sarah went and said "good-bye" to her father's grave; and the wise old nurse, after a minute spent beside it, drew Mrs. Stubbs away to the other side of the pretty churchyard to show her a curious tombstone about which she had been telling her as they drove along. So Sarah, for a few minutes, was left alone--free to kneel down and bid her farewell in peace.

It was a relief to the child to be alone, for Mrs. Stubbs, though meaning to be kindness itself, was not a woman in whose presence it was possible to grieve in comfort. Her remarks about "your pore pa"

invariably had the effect of stifling any feeling of emotion which was aroused in her childish heart.

She was very good. Sarah knew that she meant to be so.

"I'll try not to mind the difference, dear Father," she whispered to the brown sods above his dear head. "It's all so different to you, so different to when there was just you and I together. n.o.body will ever understand me like you, dear Daddy; but Auntie means to be very kind, and I'll try my hardest to grow up so that you'll love me better when we meet again."

As she rose up, Mrs. Stubbs and the nurse were coming across the gra.s.s between the graves to fetch her. Mrs. Stubbs noticed the tears on her cheeks and still flooding her eyes.

"Nay, now, you mustn't fret, Sarah," she said kindly; "'e's better off, pore thing, than when he was 'ere, so you mustn't fret for 'im, there's a good girl."

Sarah wiped her eyes, and turned to go away. She said nothing, for she knew it was no use trying to make her aunt understand that her tears had not been so much for him as for herself. And Mrs. Stubbs stood for a moment looking down upon the mould, with its covering of brown, disjointed sods and its faded wreaths.

"Pore thing!" she murmured; "it's a sad end to 'ave. And he must 'ave felt leaving the little one badly 'fore he brought himself to write that letter! Pore thing! Well, I'm not one to bear ill-will for what's past and gone, and so beyond 'elp now; and I'll be as much a mother to Sarah as if 'im and me had always been the best of friends. 'E once said I was vulgar--and perhaps I am--it's vulgar to 'ave 'earts and such like, and he knows better now, pore thing! For I have a 'eart. Yes, and the Queen upon 'er throne, she has a 'eart, too, bless her."

There were tears on the good soul's cheeks as she turned to follow Sarah, whom she found at the gate waiting for her. By the time she had reached the child she had wiped them, but Sarah saw that they had been there.

"Dear Auntie," she said. "He wasn't friends with you, but he knows how good you are now,"--and then she flung her arms round her, and her victory over her uncle's wife was complete.

"Sarah," she said, when they were nearly at the end of their journey, "you have never 'ad any playfellows, have you, dear?"

"Never, Auntie--not _real_ playfellows," Sarah answered, and flushing up with joy at the antic.i.p.ation of those who were in store for her.

"Well, I'd better warn you, Sarah--it may not be all sugar and honey till you get used to them," said Mrs. Stubbs solemnly. "There's a good deal of give and take about children's ways; that is, if you want to get on peaceable. If you get a knock, you must just bear it without telling, or else you get called a 'tell-pie,' and treated according.

It's what I've never encouraged, and I must do my children the justice to say if they gets a knock they gives it back again, and there's no more about it."

Thus Sarah was somewhat prepared for the darker side of her new life, though she gathered no true idea of the nest of young ruffians to whom she was made known an hour later.

They came out with a rush to the door when the carriage stopped, and welcomed their mother home again with a fluent and boisterous torrent of joy truly appalling to the little quiet and retiring Sarah, who was not accustomed to the domestic manners of children of the Stubbs cla.s.s.