CHAPTER TWELVE.

MAY'S SCHOOLING.

Maiden May, on finding herself alone with Miss Mary, at once went up, with a confidence she might not have felt with a person not deprived of sight as the kind lady was, and took her hand.

"Mother told me to ask whether you would like me to lead you about the garden. May I do so?"

"I should like you to lead me about very much, though I think I know my way pretty well. But you must stop whenever you come to a flower you admire, and I will tell you its name, and you must describe to me anything else you see--birds or b.u.t.terflies or other insects. As my eyes are blind, you must use yours instead of them for my benefit."

"Oh, yes, Miss Mary; I will try and do what you say," exclaimed May, delighted to find that she could be of use to the blind lady. A new existence seemed suddenly opened out to her. The gentle and refined tone of voice of Miss Mary sounded pleasing to her ear, although she did not understand all that she said, her language was so different to that she had been accustomed to hear used in the fisherman's cottage.

Then she was delighted with the new and beautiful flowers, and her wonder was excited when she found that they all had names, and that Miss Mary, though blind, could tell their colours and describe them so perfectly. Miss Mary also told her the names of the birds whose notes they heard as they walked about the grounds, and May in return described with a minuteness which surprised her blind friend a number of objects both animate and inanimate which she thought would interest her, while she asked a variety of questions which, though exhibiting her ignorance, showed a large amount of intelligence and desire to obtain information.

The child was evidently natural and thoroughly unaffected, without either timidity or rustic bashfulness. She had, indeed, been treated with uniform kindness, and with even a certain amount of respect, which the fisherman and his family could not help feeling for her. Though the dame had not failed in endeavouring to correct any faults she might have exhibited, yet she had done so with that gentleness and firmness which made the little girl sensible that her kind protectress did so for her benefit alone. The dame found the task a very easy one, for Maiden May rarely required a rebuke.

Still, though her voice was gentle, the child had caught the idiom and p.r.o.nunciation of the fisherman's family; but even in that respect there was a natural refinement in the tone of her voice; and as Adam was a G.o.d-fearing man, and had brought up his sons to fear G.o.d also, no coa.r.s.e language or objectionable expressions were ever heard in his cottage.

Indeed, more true refinement is oftener found among the lower cla.s.ses where religious principles exist than is generally supposed.

Miss Mary, after walking till she was tired, invited her young guest into the house. Luncheon was placed on the table; Susan attended her mistress and placed delicacies before May such as she had never before tasted. In spite, however, of Susan's pressing invitations to take more, she ate but sparingly, to the surprise of the kind woman, who thought that the little fisher-girl would have done more justice to the good things offered her.

"She has quite a young lady's appet.i.te," she observed afterwards to Miss Mary.

"That is not surprising, for a young lady she is, depend on that. It will be a grievous pity if her relatives are not to be found," was the answer.

After luncheon, Miss Mary got out a book and placed it before May, and begged her to read from it. By the way May endeavoured to spell out the words Miss Mary discovered that she had made but very little progress in her education.

"Please, I think I could say my lessons better in the Bible if I could find the verses father teaches me," said May, with perfect honesty.

Miss Mary rang to obtain Susan's a.s.sistance, and May asked her to find the Sermon on the Mount. May read out nearly the whole of the first chapter, with a peculiar tone and p.r.o.nunciation, which she had learned from honest Adam, following the words with her finger.

"I rather think, my little maid, that you know the verses by heart,"

observed Miss Mary.

"Oh, yes," answered May, naively, "I could not read them without; but I will try and learn more before I next come."

Miss Mary was, however, inclined to advise her not to make the attempt, as she would learn to p.r.o.nounce the words with the accent which sounded so harsh to her ears.

"But, however p.r.o.nounced, they are G.o.d's words," she thought to herself.

"I should not prevent her learning even a verse from His book. She will soon gain the right p.r.o.nunciation from educated people."

The time pa.s.sed as pleasantly with Miss Mary as with May herself.

At length Susan appeared to say that a fisher-lad, one of Dame Halliburt's sons, had come to fetch the little girl.

"Who is it?" asked Miss Mary.

"Oh, it is sure to be brother Jacob, the rest have gone out with father," answered May.

Jacob was desired to walk in. He stood in the hall, hat in hand, watching the door of the drawing-room, through which Susan had intimated May would appear. As soon as she saw him she ran forward and took both of his hands, pleasure beaming on her countenance. He stooped down and kissed her.

"Are you ready to come with me, Maidy May?" he asked; "you don't want to stop away from us with the ladies here, do you?"

"Oh, no, no, Jacob!" answered May, holding him tightly by the hand; "I don't want to leave father or mother or you; I will go back with you as soon as you like."

Miss Mary overheard the latter part of the conversation as she followed May out of the drawing-room.

"I hear, my good lad, that you have been very kind to the little girl; and pray understand that we do not wish to rob you of her; and if we ask her to come up here, it will only be to help you in teaching her to read, as I understand you have been accustomed to do."

"Please, ma'am, I am a very poor scholar," answered Jacob; "but I do my best, and I shall be main glad if you will help me."

Hand-in-hand May and Jacob set off to return home.

That evening Jacob might have been seen with the Bible before him, and May seated by his side, while he tried to help her to read. As the lamp fell on their countenances, the contrast between the fair, delicate-looking child and the big, strongly-built fisher-boy, with his well-bronzed, broad and honest face, would not have failed to be remarked by a stranger entering the room.

Jacob spelt out the words one by one, p.r.o.nouncing them with his broad accent as he gained their meaning, while May followed him, imitating exactly the intonation of his voice. Sometimes she not only caught him up, but got ahead, reading on several words by herself, greatly to her delight.

"Ah, May! I see how it is," said Jacob, with a sigh. "You will be quicker with your books than I ever shall be, and if the kind ladies at Downside wish to teach you, it's not for me to say them nay; but I would that I had more learning for your sake, and I shall be jealous of them, that I shall, when I find that you can read off out of any book you have got as smoothly as you do the verses you have learned by rote. Oh, you will be laughing at me then."

"No, no, Jacob! I will never laugh at you. You taught me all I know about reading, and I shall never forget that, even if I learn to read ever so well."

Next morning, when Adam came home from fishing, the dame told him the interest Miss Mary Pemberton seemed to take in Maiden May, and of her expectation that the Miss Pembertons would wish to have the little girl up to instruct her better than they could at home. Adam agreed that it would not be right to prevent their charge enjoying the benefit which such instruction would undoubtedly be to her.

"But they must not rob us of her altogether, dame. I could not bear to part with the little maiden, and what is more I won't, unless her own kindred come to claim her, and then it would go sore against the grain to give her up. But right is right, and we could not stand out against that."

"If the Miss Pembertons wish to take the little girl into their house and make a little lady of her it would not be right, I fear, Adam, to say 'No' to them."

"She is a little lady already," answered Adam, st.u.r.dily. "They could not make her more so than she is already."

"But I am afraid the way we live, and speak too, Adam, is not like that of gentlefolks; and though our Maiden May is a little lady, and better than many little ladies I have known in all her ways, she will become in time too much like one of us to please those to whom she belongs, I am afraid," observed the dame, who had from her experience as a domestic servant in Mr Castleton's family, a clearer perception of the difference between the habits of her own cla.s.s and those of the upper orders of society than her husband. Still Adam was not to be convinced.

"We are bringing her up as a Christian child should be brought up, to be good and obedient," he observed, in a determined tone, "and that's more than many among the gentry are. You know, Betsy, you wouldn't like her to be like that Miss Castleton you told me off."

"No more I should," answered the dame; "But though the Pembertons are of her kindred, they are truly Christian ladies, and Maiden May could only learn good from them."

As is often the case in a matrimonial discussion, the wife had the best of the argument, but they were still uncertain whether the Miss Pembertons would even make the offer which the dame had suggested as possible. She, at all events, had promised to take Maiden May up to them, and Adam could not prohibit her doing so.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

MAY AN APT SCHOLAR.

On Miss Pemberton's return to Downside, while seated at their tea-table, Miss Mary gave her a description of her young visitor of the morning, and told her of the proposal she was anxious to make about her.

"I should just like to see the little girl," said Miss Pemberton. "If she is really as the dame supposes, of gentle birth, it would be undoubtedly right to try and give her some of the advantages of which she has been deprived. At the same time we should be cautious--perhaps the dame may have been mistaken, and it will be unnecessary, if not imprudent, to try and raise her above the position in which she was born, unless she possesses qualities calculated to make her happier and better in a higher station."

"Well, Jane, I could only form an opinion from her sweet voice and from what she said. Adam Halliburt and his wife are devotedly fond of her, and do you not think that we may help them by judicious training."

"Well, Mary, I see that you are determined to think highly of the child, and unless we find that you are mistaken, I shall be very glad to see her as often as her worthy protectors will allow her to come," said Miss Pemberton.