"But our Ada Elizabeth's got the first prize of all," she informed them; and in her eagerness to divert her father's slow attention from herself, she spoke with such an air of pride in the unlooked-for result of the examination that Ada Elizabeth cast a glance of pa.s.sionate grat.i.tude towards her, and then visibly shrank into herself, as if, in having won so prominent a place, she had done something to make her mother's trials harder to bear than ever. "And there's going to be a grander treat than we've ever had this year," Gerty went on, in her glibest tones. "And the dean's lady, Lady Margaret, is going to give the prizes away, and all the company is going to be at the treat, and--and----"

"Oh! what a pity!" exclaimed Mrs. d.i.c.ki'son, turning a hopeless gaze upon poor Ada Elizabeth. "Our Ada Elizabeth 'll never show up properly, as you would, Gerty."

"Our Ada Elizabeth's lesson-books 'll show up better than Gerty's, may be," put in Mr. d.i.c.ki'son, in his quietest tone and with his driest manner.

"Oh! Ada Elizabeth's not clever like Gerty," returned Mrs. d.i.c.ki'son, utterly ignorant as she was indifferent to the fact that she was rapidly taking all the savour out of the child's hour of triumph. "And you were so sure of it too, Gerty."

"So was the hare of winning the race; but the tortoise won, after all,"

remarked Mr. d.i.c.ki'son sententiously.

"What _are_ you talking about, Father?" his wife demanded. "I'm sure if tidy 'air has anything to do with it, Gerty ought to be at the top of the tree, for, try as I will, I _can't_ make Ada Elizabeth's 'air ever look aught like, wash it and brush it and curl it as ever I will; and as for 'air-oil----"

Mr. d.i.c.ki'son interrupted his wife by a short laugh. "I didn't mean that at all"--he knew by long experience that it was useless to try to make her understand what he did mean--"but, now you speak of it, perhaps Ada Elizabeth's 'air don't make so much show as some of the others; it's like mine, and mine never was up to much--not but what there's scarcely enough left to tell what sort it is."

It was quite a long speech for the unsociable and quiet Mr. d.i.c.ki'son to come out with, and his wife pa.s.sed it by without comment, only making a fretful reiteration of Ada Elizabeth's plainness and a complaint of the sorry figure she would cut among the great doings on the day of the school treat and distribution of prizes.

"_Is_ our Ada Elizabeth a plain one?" said Mr. d.i.c.ki'son, with an air of astonishment which conveyed a genuine desire for information, then turned and scanned the child's burning face, after which he looked closely at the faces of the other children, so little like hers, and so nearly like that of his pretty, mindless, complaining wife. "Well, yes, little 'un, I suppose you're not exactly pretty," he admitted unwillingly; "you're like me, and I never was a beauty to look at. But, there, 'handsome is as handsome does,' and you've brought home first prize to-day, which you wouldn't have done, may be, if you'd always been on the grin, like Gerty there. Seems to me," he went on reflectively, "that that there first prize 'll stand by you when folks has got tired of Gerty's grin, that's what seems to me. I don't know," he went on, "that I set so much store by looks. I never was aught but a plain man, but I've made you a good husband, Em'ly, and you can't deny it. You'll mind that good-looking chap, Joe Webster, that you kept company with before you took up with me? He chucked you up for Eliza Moriarty.

Well, I met her this morning, poor soul! with two black eyes and her lips strapped up with plaster. H'm!" with a sniff of self-approval, "seems to me I'd not care to change my plain looks for his handsome ones. 'Handsome is as handsome does' is _my_ motto; and if I want aught doing for me, it's our Ada Elizabeth I asks to do it, that's all _I_ know."

The great day of the school treat came and went. The dean's wife, Lady Margaret Adair, gave away the prizes, as she had promised, and was so struck with "our Ada Elizabeth's" timid and shrinking air that she kept her for a few minutes, while she told her that she had heard a very good account of her, and that she hoped she would go on and work harder than ever. "For I see," said Lady Margaret, looking at a paper in her hand, "that you are the first in your cla.s.s for these subjects, and that you have carried off the regular attendance and good-conduct prize as well.

I am sure you must be a very good little woman, and be a great favourite with your schoolmistress."

Mrs. d.i.c.ki'son--who, as the mother of the show pupil of the day, and as a person of much respectability in the neighbourhood, which was not famous for that old-fashioned virtue, had been given a seat as near as possible to the das on which Lady Margaret and the table of prizes were accommodated--heard the pleasant words of praise, which would have made most mothers' hearts throb with exultant pride, with but little of such a feeling; on the contrary, her whole mind was filled with regret that it was not Gerty standing on the edge of the das, instead of the unfortunate Ada Elizabeth, who did not show off well. If only it had been Gerty! Gerty would have answered my lady with a pretty blush and smile, and would have dropped her courtesy at the right moment, and would have been a credit to her mother generally.

But, alas! Gerty's glib tongue and ready smiles had not won her the prizes which had fallen to poor little plain Ada Elizabeth's share, and Gerty was out in the cold, so to speak, among the other scholars, while Ada Elizabeth, in an agony of shyness and confusion, stood on the edge of the das, first on one foot and then on the other, conscious that her mother's eyes were upon her and that their expression was not an approving one, feeling, though she would hardly have been able to put it into words, that in cutting so sorry a figure she was making her poor mother's trials more hard to bear than ever. Poor little plain child, she kept courtesying up and down like a mechanical doll, and saying, "Yes, 'm," and "No, 'm," at the wrong moments, and she altogether forgot that the fresh-coloured, buxom lady in the neat black gown and with only a bit of blue feather to relieve her black bonnet was not a "ma'am" at all, but a "my lady," who ought to have been addressed as such. At last, however, the ceremony, and the games and sports, and the big tea were all over, and Ada Elizabeth went home with her prizes to be a heroine no longer, for she soon, very soon, in the presence of Gerty's prettiness and Gerty's glib tongue and ready smiles, sank into the insignificance which had been her portion aforetime. She had not much encouragement to go on trying to be a credit to the family which she had so hardly tried by taking after her father, for n.o.body seemed to remember that she had been at the top of the tree at the great examination, or, if they did recall it, it was generally as an example of the schoolmistress's "awkwardness" of disposition in having pa.s.sed over the hare for the tortoise. Yet sometimes, when Gerty was extra hard upon Ada Elizabeth's dulness, or Mrs. d.i.c.ki'son found the trial of her life more heavy to bear than usual, her father would look up from his dinner or his tea, as it might happen to be, and fix his slow gaze upon his eldest daughter's vivacious countenance.

"H'm! Our Ada Elizabeth's too stupid to live, is she? Well, you're like to know, Gerty; it was you won three first prizes last half, wasn't it? A great credit to you, to say nought about the 'good conduct and regular attendance.' Yes, you're like to know all about it, you are."

"Dear me, Gerty," Mrs. d.i.c.ki'son would as often as not chime in fretfully, having just wit enough to keep on the blind side of "Father,"

"eat your tea, and let our Ada Elizabeth alone, do; it isn't pretty of you to be always calling her for something. Our Ada Elizabeth's plain-looking, there's no saying aught again' it, but stupid she isn't, and never was; and, as Father says, "andsome is as 'andsome does'; so don't let me hear any more of it."

And all the time the poor little subject of discussion would sit writhing upon her chair, feeling that, after all, Gerty was quite right, and that she was not only unfortunately plain to look at, but that, in spite of the handsome prizes laid out in state on the top of the chest of drawers, there was little doubt that she was just too stupid to live.

CHAPTER III

It was a very mild and damp autumn that year, and the autumn was succeeded by an equally mild winter; therefore it is not surprising that the truth of the old saying, "A green Christmas makes a fat kirkyard,"

became sadly realized in the neighbourhood of Gardener's Lane.

For about the middle of December a dangerous low fever, with some leaning towards typhoid, broke out in the parish, and the men being mostly hard-drinkers, and the majority of the women idle drabs who did not use half-a-pound of soap in a month, it flew from house to house until half the population was down with it; ay, and, as nearly always happens, not only the hard-drinkers and the idle drabs were those to suffer, but the steady, respectable workmen and the good housewives came in for more than their just share of the tribulation also. And, among others, the d.i.c.ki'son family paid dearly for the sins and shortcomings of their fellow-creatures, for the first to fall sick was the pretty, complaining mother, of whom not even her detractors could say other than that she was cleanliness itself in all her ways. And it was a very bad case. The good parson came down with offers of help, and sent in a couple of nurses, whom he paid out of his own pocket--though, if he had but known it, he would have done much more wisely to have spent the same amount of money on one with more knowledge of her business and less power of speech--and the doctor and his partner came and went with grave and anxious faces, which did not say too much for the sick woman's chance of recovery.

Mr. d.i.c.ki'son stayed at home from his work for a whole week, and spent his time about equally between anxiously watching his wife's fever-flushed face and sitting with his children, trying to keep them quiet--no easy task, let me tell you, in a house where every movement could be heard in every corner; and, as the schools were promptly closed, for fear of spreading the epidemic, the children were on hand during the whole day, and, poor little things, were as sorely tried by the silence they were compelled to keep as they tried the quiet, dull man whose heart was full almost to bursting.

But he was very patient and good with them, and Ada Elizabeth was his right hand in everything. For the first time in her life she forgot her plain looks and her mother's trials, and felt that she had been born to some purpose, and that purpose a good one. And then there came an awful day, when the mother's illness was at the worst, when the two nurses stood one on each side of the bed and freely discussed her state, in utter indifference to the husband standing miserably by, with Gerty's little sharp face peeping from behind him.

"Eh, pore thing, I'm sure!" with a sniff and a sob, "it is 'ard at 'er age to go i' this way--pore thing, it is 'ard. Which ring did you say Gerty was to 'ave, love?" bending down over the sick woman, who was just conscious enough to know that some one was speaking to her--"the keeper?

Yes, love; I'll see to it. And which is for Ada Elizabeth?"

"Her breathing's getting much harder," put in the woman on the other side; "it won't be long now. T' doctor said there was a chance with care, but I know better. I've seen so many, and if it's the Lord's will to take her, He'll take her. We may do all we can, but it's no use, for I've seen so many."

Mr. d.i.c.ki'son gave a smothered groan, and turning sharply round went out of the room and down the narrow creaking stairs, with a great lump in his throat and a thick mist in front of his eyes. A fretful wail from little Mirry had fallen upon his ear, and he found her sobbing piteously, while Ada Elizabeth tried in vain to pacify her. She was more quiet when she found herself in his arms; and then he noticed, with a sudden and awful fear knocking at his heart, that there was something wrong with his right hand, Ada Elizabeth--that she looked f.a.gged and white, and that there was a brilliancy in her dull grey eyes such as he had never seen there before.

"Ada Elizabeth, what ails you?" he asked anxiously.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Ada Elizabeth, what ails you?" he asked anxiously.]

"Nought, Father; I'm a bit tired, that's all," she answered, pushing her heavy hair away from her forehead. "Mirry was awake all night nearly, and I couldn't keep her quiet hardly."

Mr. d.i.c.ki'son looked closely at Mirry; but though the child was evidently heavy and inclined to be fretful, there was not the same glitter in her eyes as there was in her sister's.

"Here, Gerty," he said, "nurse Mirry a bit. I want to go upstairs for a minute."

"Can't Ada Elizabeth have her?" asked Gerty, who always wanted to be in the sick-room, so that she might know the latest news of her mother and be to the front whoever came--for in those dark days, between the rector and the doctors and the neighbours who came in and out, there were a good many visitors to the little house. "Our Ada Elizabeth always keeps Mirry quiet better than I can, father."

"Do as I bid you," returned Mr. d.i.c.ki'son sharply; and thus rebuked, Gerty sat crossly down and b.u.mped little Mirry on to her knee with a burst of temper, which set the child wailing again.

Mr. d.i.c.ki'son had already reached the sick-room, where the nurses were still standing over his half-unconscious wife's bed.

"I want you a minute, missus," he said to the one who had been so anxious concerning the disposal of Mrs. d.i.c.ki'son's few bits of jewellery. "Just come downstairs a minute."

The woman followed him, wondering what he could want. "Just look at this little la.s.s," he said, taking Ada Elizabeth by the hand and leading her to the window. "Do you think there is aught amiss with her?"

There is little or no reserve among the poor, they speak their minds, and they tell ill news with a terrible bluntness which is simply appalling to those of a higher station; and this woman did not hesitate to say what she thought, notwithstanding the fact that she knew that the man was utterly overwrought, and that the child's fever-bright eyes were fixed earnestly upon her.

"Mr. d.i.c.ki'son," she cried, "I'll not deceive you, no; some folks would tell you as nought ailed, but not me--wi' her pore mother dying upstairs. I couldn't find it in my 'eart to do it; I couldn't indeed.

Pore Ada Elizabeth's took, and you'd better run round to Widow Martin's and see if t' doctor's been there this morning. He telled me I might send there for him up to one o'clock, and it's only ten minutes past.

Ada Elizabeth, lie down on t' sofa, honey, and keep yourself quiet.

Gerty, can't you keep Mirry at t' window? Ada Elizabeth's took with the fever, and can't bear being tewed about wi' her."

Mr. d.i.c.ki'son was off after the doctor like a shot, and less than a quarter of an hour brought him back to see if the nurse's fiat was a true one. Alas! it proved to be too true, and the kind-hearted doctor drew the grief-stricken man on one side.

"Look here, d.i.c.ki'son," he said, "your wife is very ill indeed; it's no use my deceiving you--her life hangs on a thread, and it will be only by the greatest care if she is pulled through this. The child has undoubtedly got the fever upon her, and she cannot have the attention she ought to have here. There is not room enough nor quiet enough, and there's n.o.body to attend to her. Get her off to the hospital at once."

"The hospital!" repeated Mr. d.i.c.ki'son blankly. He had all the horror of a hospital that so many of his cla.s.s have.

"It's the child's best chance," answered the doctor. "Of course, it may turn out only a mild attack. All the better that she should be in the hospital, in any case; in fact, I wish your wife was there this minute."

"Doctor," said Mr. d.i.c.ki'son hoa.r.s.ely, "I don't like my little la.s.s going to the hospital. I don't like it."

"But there is no help for it, and she'll be far better off there than she would be at home," the doctor answered; "but, all the same, they'd better not talk about it before your wife. Even when she is delirious or half-unconscious she knows a good deal of what's going on about her.

I'll step up and have a look at her, and will speak to the women myself."

Before a couple of hours were over, Ada Elizabeth was comfortably in bed in the quiet and shady ward of the well-managed hospital, and in the little house in Gardener's Lane the struggle between life and death went on, while Gerty had to devote herself as best she could to the children.

Gerty felt that it was desperately hard upon her, for Mirry and six-year-old Georgie fretted without ceasing for "our Ada Elizabeth,"

and would not be comforted; not, all the same, that Gerty's ideas of comfort were very soothing ones--a b.u.mp and a shake, and divers threatenings of Bogle-Bo, and a black man who came down chimneys to carry naughty children away, being about her form; and little Mirry and Georgie found it but a poor subst.i.tute for the tender if dull patience of "our Ada Elizabeth."