The Story of Jessie.

by Mabel Quiller-Couch.

CHAPTER I.

A LETTER FOR SUNNYSIDE COTTAGE.

Thomas Dawson was busy in the kitchen trying to make the kettle boil, and to get the fire clear that he might do a piece of toast. He had already tidied up the grate and swept the floor, and as he stood by the table with the loaf in his hand, about to cut a slice, his eye wandered down through the dewy, sunny garden, where every tree and bush was beginning to show a little film of green over its brown branches.

But before he could notice anything in the garden, his attention was attracted by the sight of Daniel Magor, the postman, standing at the gate and fumbling with the latch. Thomas dropped the loaf and the knife, and went out to meet him, leaving the house-door wide open to the beautiful morning sunshine, which poured in in a wide stream right across the kitchen, lighting up with golden radiance the flowers in the window, the old-fashioned photographs on the wall, the china on the dressers, and the cat lying asleep on the scarlet cushion in the arm-chair by the fire.

When he saw Thomas coming the postman ceased fumbling with the latch and waited, holding two letters in his hand.

"Lovely weather, Mr. Dawson. You ain't to work this morning!" he remarked in a tone of surprise.

Thomas shook his head slowly. "No, my wife is bad, she've been bad all night with a sick headache. She's better this morning, but I stayed home to get her some breakfast, and tidy up a bit.

When anybody's sick they don't feel they want to do much."

"You'm right," agreed the postman feelingly. "I gets sick headaches very bad myself, and when I wakes with one it seems to me I don't care whether folk gets their letters or not. I am glad I didn't feel like that this morning, Mr. Dawson, for it's good to be alive on such a day, and I've got two letters for you."

"Both of 'em for me!" said Thomas in surprise, and holding out his hand to take them. "I don't think I've had two to once in my life before."

The postman laughed. "If folks didn't get more than you do we postmen would soon be out of a job, I reckon!" But Thomas was gazing at his letters with such a perplexed, preoccupied air, that he did not reply, and Daniel, with a long, inquiring look at him, said "Good-morning," and went on his way.

"One is the seed-list," muttered Thomas to himself, as he retraced his steps through the garden under the budding May-trees, "but it pa.s.ses my understanding to know who can have sent the other.

It--it can't be from--from her," he added, with sudden thought, speaking as though it pained him even to put such a thought into words.

The old cat, hearing his footsteps on the path, roused herself and went out to meet him, but for once he paid no heed to her, and pa.s.sing into the house sat himself down in the chair by the window, while he still gazed with troubled eyes at the outside of the envelope, and the blurred post-mark which told him nothing.

Moments pa.s.sed before he could summon up courage to open it, for in his heart he felt almost certain who the writer was, and he dreaded to read what might be written; and when at last he did make up his mind, his hand trembled so as he tore open the envelope, that his misty eyes could scarcely make out what was written, or take in the meaning.

"Dear Father and Mother "--for seconds he was unable to read beyond that beginning, so strange yet familiar it seemed after all these years of silence--"I hope you will not refuse to open a letter from me, and I hope that you will try to forgive me for all that's past, and for what I am about to do. You would if you knew all. I wrote to you and told you I had married Harry Lang. I hope you had the letter and read it. I was happy enough for a time, but Harry has had no work to speak of for more than a year, and though we've sold all the little I'd got together, we have been nearly starving many a time. At last, though, Harry has got a good job offered him in a gentleman's racing stables. It is a fine berth to have got, the wages is good, and there are rooms to live in, and we can't refuse it after all we have been through, but they won't allow no children.

"If work hadn't been so hard to get, and we starving, we would have waited for something else, for it nearly kills me to part with my Jessie, but I've got to, and, dear father and mother, I hope you will forgive me, but I am sending her to you. She is all I've got, and I am nearly crazy at losing her, but I don't know what else to do.

Life is very hard sometimes. I know you will be good to her, and you can't help loving her, I know. She is very good and quiet, and she will not give mother very much trouble, and I pray with all my heart she may be a better child, and more of a comfort to you than I have ever been.

"Your broken-hearted but loving,

"Lizzie.

"P.S.--She is five years old and strong and healthy. I had her christened Jessamine May to remind me of the jessamine and the May-trees at home, for I love my old home dearer than any place in the world. Forgive me, dear father and mother, and be good to my precious darling."

For minutes after he had reached the end of the letter, poor Thomas Dawson sat with tears running fast over his weather-worn cheeks.

"My little maid," he kept saying to himself, with a sob in his breath, "my Lizzie starving! starving! and me with a plenty and to spare!" It was his own child he was thinking of, his own Lizzie, the little maiden who had been the apple of his eye, the joy and pride of his life--and this was what she had come to!

The kettle sang and boiled on the hob, the fire burnt clear, but the loaf lay on the table uncut, and still the old man sat staring before him at the letter spread on the table, heeding nothing until a thought came which roused him completely--though only to a deeper sense of trouble. "However am I going to break the news to mother,"

he groaned. "Oh, my! but it'll upset her something cruel--and that lazy, good-for-nothing fellow that she could never abide, have brought it all upon us!"

His thoughts and his wonderings, though, were brought to a sudden stop by the touch of a hand on his shoulder. "Why, Thomas, you were so quiet I thought you must be asleep, or ill, or something, and I was so worried I had to get up at last and come down and see."

Then, as her husband turned to her, and she caught sight of his face, she grew really alarmed. "What is it? What has happened? There is trouble, I can see it. Tell me what it is, quick, for pity's sake.

Don't 'ee keep me waiting."

He rose, and gently putting her into the chair he had been occupying, he handed her Lizzie's letter. "That's the trouble, mother," he said; "it might have been worse--that's all I can say. You must read it for yourself, it'd choke me to do so if I was to try," and he went away to the door and stood there gazing out at the sunny garden where the daffodils bowed gently before the soft breeze, and the crocuses opened their golden cups to the sun. But he saw nothing, all his mind was given to his wife, and the letter she was reading, and to wondering how she would bear it, and what he could say to comfort her.

At last a long low cry reached him, and he turned hastily back into the kitchen; but, instead of seeing her white and shaken and weeping, as he was prepared to see her, the face that looked up to him was quivering with eagerness and love and joy.

"She's sending us her little one, father!" she gasped in a voice quavering with glad excitement. "Lizzie's little girl, our own little grandchild! We shall have a child about the place again, something to love and work for. You see, Lizzie turns to us in her trouble, poor girl, and it must be a terrible trouble to her," with a momentary sadness dimming the joy in her eyes. "But, oh, I am so thankful, so happy." Then, springing to her feet, "I am well now!

this is the medicine I wanted. Father, when do you think she will come? I must get the place all nice and tidy, and a room ready for her, in good time too, and it seems to me I'd best set to work at once or I shall never get a half done!"

Thomas did not say much, his heart was too full for speech, but the inexpressible relief he felt showed in his face and his blue eyes.

"I'm glad you takes it like that, mother," he said simply, "I was afraid."

"Afraid! afraid of what? That I shouldn't want her!"

But at that moment the kettle boiled over with a great hiss, and brought them back to everyday affairs again.

"Well, any way," said Thomas, with a happy smile on his pleasant old face, "we can allow ourselves time for a bit of breakfast, or maybe when she does come we shall be past speaking a word to show her she's welcome," and while both of them laughed over his little joke, he made the long-delayed cup of tea, and, though both were too excited to eat, they sat down together to their breakfast.

CHAPTER II.

JESSIE ARRIVES.

Unwell though she had been, Mrs. Dawson would not let her husband do a single thing indoors to help her in preparation for the little newcomer.

"No. Men is only in the way," she said decidedly. "I shall get on twice as fast if you leave me the place to myself." So, knowing that she meant what she said, Thomas went out and set to work in the garden, for, of course, that must be made trim, too, for the little five-year-old grandchild. He forked over the earth in all the beds, tied up to a stick every daffodil that did not stand perfectly upright by itself, trimmed the sweetbriar hedge, and swept the paths.

"If I'd got the time," he called in to Patience, "I would give the gate a coat of paint."

"I wish you could," she called back, "and the front door, too, it'd be the better for it. To a stranger, I dare say it'll look shabby."

Evidently they expected the new-comer to be a very critical little person.

"I can whitewash the back porch," thought Thomas, "and I'll do it without saying anything to mother. It will be a bit of a surprise to her."

But while he was putting on the last brushful or two, a thought came to him which sent him hurrying into the house in quite a flurry.

"Mother!" he called up the stairs, "mother! we don't know when she's coming, Lizzie didn't say--and what's to prevent her coming to-day?"

Patience dropped her scrubbing-brush and sat down on the top stair, overcome with excitement and surprise. "To-day! this very day!

Oh dear! oh dear! how careless of Lizzie not to tell us! The poor child might come at any time, and n.o.body be there to meet her, and we can't write and ask, for she didn't give us any address to write to.

Lizzie did use to have some sense before she took up with that Harry Lang, but now--"

Patience lapsed into silence because she could not find words which would sufficiently express her feelings. She was tired and irritable too, and she never could endure uncertainty.

Thomas had been standing by all this while, thinking deeply.