The captain’s face beamed again.
“And now, my girl—but, by the way, I shall want another bedroom. Have you—”
“I’m sorry to say that we have not. The rest of the house is quite full.”
Captain Bream’s face again became anxious. “That’s bad,” he said; “of course I can get one out o’ the house, but it would be inconvenient.”
“There is a hattic, sir,” said the maid, “but it is ’igh up, and so very small, that I fear—”
“Let me see the attic,” said the captain, promptly.
The maid conducted him up another flight of steps to a room, or rather closet, which did not appear to be more than five feet broad and barely six feet long; including the storm-window, it might have been perhaps seven feet long. It was situated in a sort of angle, so that from the window you could have a view of a piece of slate roof, and two crooked chimney pots with a slice of the sea between them. As there was much traffic on the sea off that coast, the slice referred to frequently exhibited a ship or a boat for a few seconds.
“My study!” murmured the captain, looking round on the bare walls, and the wooden chair, and a low bedstead which constituted the furniture. “Not much room for the intellect to expand here. However, I’ve seen worse.”
“We consider it a very good hattic, sir,” said the little maid, somewhat hurt by the last remark.
“I meant no offence, my dear,” said the captain, with one of his blandest smiles, “only the berth is rather small, d’ee see, for a man of my size. It is first-rate as far as it goes, but if it went a little further—in the direction of the sea, you know—it might give me a little more room to kick about my legs. But it’ll do. It’ll do. I’ll take all the rooms, so you’ll consider them engaged.”
“But you haven’t asked the price of ’em yet sir,” said the little maid.
“I don’t care tuppence about the price, my dear. Are you the landlady?”
“La! no, sir,” replied the girl, laughing outright as they returned to the parlour.
“Well then, you send the landlady to me, and I’ll soon settle matters.”
When the landlady appeared, the captain was as good as his word. He at once agreed to her terms, as well as her stipulations, and paid the first week’s rent in advance on the spot.
“Now,” said he, on leaving, “I’ll come back this evening with a lot of books. To-morrow forenoon, the ladies for whom the rooms are taken will arrive, please God, and you will have everything ready and in apple-pie order for ’em. I’ll see about grub afterwards, but in the meantime you may give orders to have sent in to-morrow a lot o’ fresh eggs and milk and cream—lots of cream—and fresh butter and tea and coffee an’ suchlike. But I needn’t do more than give a wink to a lady of your experience.”
With this last gallant remark Captain Bream left the lodging and strolled down to the sea-beach.
Chapter Fourteen.
Ruth’s Hopes as to her Plot brighten a little
“Mother,” said Ruth one day to her dignified parent, “shall you be soon free of engagements?”
“Yes, probably by the end of next week. Why do you ask?”
“Because I am longing to get away to Yarmouth. I had a letter from dear Kate Seaward to-day. They have been a week in their lodging now, and are enjoying it immensely. Here is the letter. Let me read a bit of it to you. She says: ‘You have no idea how much we are charmed with this place. It is a perfect paradise! Perhaps part of our feeling of delight is due to the great change from our smoky little residence in London, but you would not wonder at my enthusiasm if you saw the sweet little window beside which I am writing, and the splendid sea—like a great field of clear glass, which spreads away on all sides to the horizon. Oh! I do love the sea—to look at, I mean. You must not suppose, dear, that I have any love left when I am on it. Oh no! The memory of my last crossing of the Channel—that dreadful British Channel—is as fresh as if it had happened yesterday—the heaving of the steamer and the howling of the wind, the staggering of the passengers, and the expression of their faces, to say nothing of their colour. And then the sensations! Appalling is a mild word. It is not appropriate. If I might coin a word, horrific seems more suitable. But words utterly fail when deep and powerful sensations are concerned. I do assure you, Ruth, that I was absolutely indifferent as to what should become of me that dreadful day as I lay extended flat on my back on one of the saloon sofas. And when that nurse with the baby was forced by a lurch of the ship to sit down on me, I do believe that I could have thanked her if she had crushed me out of existence. Yes, I hate the sea as a place of residence, but I love it as an object to be looked at, especially when it is calm and glittering, as it now is, in the early morning sun.
“Talking of the early morning reminds me of good Captain Bream, who is one of the most singular and incomprehensible creatures I ever met with. He is an early riser—not that that makes him singular—but instead of going out to walk he remains up in his pigeon-hole of a room studying theology! And such a miscellaneous collection of books he has got on all sorts of religious controversy! He say he wants to be able to meet the objections of unbelievers whom he sometimes encounters when preaching to sailors. Jessie and I have heard him preach to a number of sailors and fishermen assembled in an old boat-shed, and you have no idea, Ruth, how delightful it is to hear him. So different from what one expected, and so very unlike the preaching of many men. I have often wondered why it is that some men—sensible men, too, in other matters—should think it necessary to talk in a sing-song, or whiny voice, with a pathetic drawl, or through their noses, when they have to speak on religious subjects! I once heard an indignant clergyman say that he thought it was a device of the devil to turn sacred things into ridicule, but I cannot agree with that. It seems to me that men are often too ready to saddle Satan with evil devices which they ought to fix on their own stupid shoulders. Captain Bream simply talks when he preaches; just as if he were talking on any business matter of great importance, and he does it so nicely, too, and so earnestly, like a father talking to his children. Many of the rough-looking fishermen were quite melted, and after the meeting a good many of them remained behind to talk with him privately. Jessie and I are convinced that he is doing a great and good work here. But he is a most eccentric man, and seems a good deal perplexed by his theological studies. The other day Jessie ventured to question him about these, and he became quite energetic as he said:—
“‘I tell ’ee what it is, ladies, when I go cruisin’ out and in among these theological volumes until I lose my reckoning altogether an’ git among shoals an’ quicksands that I never so much as heard of before, I just lay hold o’ the cable that’s made fast to my sheet-anchor, and I haul in on that. Here is the sheet-anchor, he said, pulling his little Bible from his pocket, the Word of God. That’s it. When I feel how ignorant an’ stoopid an’ unlearned I am, I just keep haulin’ on the cable till I come to some such word as this, “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord,” an’ so I’m comforted, an’ my mind’s made easy, for, after all we may think and say and read, it must come to this—“Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.” Every man must work out his own theology for himself, accordin’ to that Word, and I’ve worked it out so far by God’s blessin’, that Jesus Christ—the God—man—is my foundation, the Holy Spirit is my guide, and salvation from sin is my aim and end—not only for myself but for my fellow-sinners.
“‘But I must not go on quoting the Captain’s sayings and eccentric doings, else I shall never stop.
“‘When are you and your mother coming down? I cannot tell how much we long to have you with us to share in our enjoyment of this charming place. And the fisher-people are so interesting too. I don’t wonder you took such a fancy to them. Of course we have not had time to make acquaintance with many of them yet. And Jessie has become so engrossed with the Captain’s theological books that I can’t tear her away from them. At first she began to inspect their contents with a view to tabulate them and help the captain, but she gets so deep in them that she forgets time altogether, and I have often found her, after having been several hours in the library, sitting there poring over a huge volume without having made a single note or jotting! The captain is quite facetious about it, and said yesterday that if she didn’t work a little harder he’d have to dismiss her from the service an’ ship a new hand. Then he dragged us both out for a long walk on the beach. We cannot resist him. Nobody can. And such cream as we have!—more like thin butter than cream. And such quantities of it too, for he declares he is very fond of it, and must always have plenty on hand. But I cannot help thinking it is for our sakes he has it, for although he talks much about it and makes great demonstration and noise when he drinks it, he does not really consume much—and you know it must be drunk by somebody, else it would spoil. Oh! we are having, as the captain himself says, a remarkably jolly time of it here, and only want you to make our happiness complete. But with all his fun and energy and cheerfulness, I cannot avoid noticing that dear Captain Bream is frequently very pensive and absent. I cannot help thinking sometimes that he is the victim of some secret sorrow.’”
At this point Ruth looked up in her mother’s face and burst into a fit of hilarious laughter.
“Only think, mother,” she said, “of great big, stout, jolly old Captain Bream having a secret sorrow!”
“My dear,” said Mrs Dotropy in a reproachful tone, “you are too flippant in your references to stout old people. You should remember that even the stoutest of them may once have been thin. And it is not impossible that Captain Bream may still be suffering from unrequited affection, or—”
Again Ruth burst into silvery laughter, but checked it and apologised.
“I can’t help it mother. It does seem so funny to think of Captain Bream having ever been thin, or with hair on his head, or suffering from disappointed love. I wonder that it does not occur to Kate that the good man is perhaps suffering because of the sorrows of others. It would be much more like his generous and unselfish nature. But now, mother, may I write to Kate and tell her to expect us next week?”
“Yes, I think you may. But why are you in such haste, child?”
“Because I’m burning to clear up that little mystery that I told you of—if indeed it is a mystery, and not a mere fancy.”
Ruth sighed as if her spirit were slightly troubled. “Really, child, you have quite raised my curiosity about that mystery as you call it. Why will you not confide in me?”
“Because I may be all wrong, and when I find out that I’m right—if I find out that I’m right—then you shall know all about it.”
“And there’s that chest, too, that the captain sent here for us to take care of when he left town,” continued Mrs Dotropy, “you make quite a mystery about that too, for I see that you know something about it. If I had not perfect confidence in your heart, child, I should feel quite anxious, for it is the first time in your life that you have concealed anything from me.”
“Thank you, mother, for trusting my heart,” said Ruth, putting an arm round the dignified lady’s neck and kissing her.
“That’s all very well, Ruth, but I do not put so much trust in your head.”
“I’m sorry for that, Mother, but meantime my head says that while it would be wrong in me to keep any secret about myself from you, I have no right to reveal the secrets of others. But about this chest—has the banker sent for it yet?”
“No, not yet but I expect some one from the bank every minute, (she consulted a small jewelled watch), and it is probable that our young friend Mr Dalton himself may come.”
“Mr Dalton!” exclaimed Ruth, with a sudden flush that might have indicated pleasure or annoyance. Mrs Dotropy, however, did not observe the flush, but continued—
“The chest seems miraculously heavy. I told James to put it into the store-room, but he could not lift it, although he is a strong man, and had to get the butler’s assistance.”
At that moment the conversation was interrupted by the door being thrown open, and Mr Dalton was announced.
He was a young man of handsome face and figure, with dark eyes, short curly hair, and a pleasing address.
Apologising for not being more punctual in calling for the chest, he explained that pressing-business had detained him.
“Of course, of course,” said Mrs Dotropy, with the familiarity of an old friend—for such she was to the youth—“you men of business always carry about that cloak of pressing-business to cover your sins and shortcomings with.”
“Nay, you are unjust,” said the young man, “I appeal to Miss Ruth. Did I not say to Captain Bream that I might perhaps have difficulty in getting away at the hour named, as it was a business hour, and, the transaction being of a friendly and private nature—”
“My dear sir,” interrupted Mrs Dotropy, “if it is private, pray do not make it public.”
“Has not Miss Ruth, then, told you—”
He stopped and looked from one lady to the other.
“Miss Ruth,” said that young lady, flushing deeply, “is supposed to know nothing whatever about your transactions with Captain Bream. Shall I go and tell James to carry the box down-stairs, mother?”
Mrs Dotropy gave permission, and Ruth retired. A few minutes later, young Dalton drove away with the captain’s chest of gold.
A week after that the mother and daughter drove away from the same door to the railway station, and in process of time found themselves one pleasant afternoon at Yarmouth, in the little parlour with the window that commanded the gorgeous view of the sea, taking tea with the captain himself and his friends Jessie and Kate Seaward.
A lodging had been secured quite close to their own by the Dotropys.
“Now,” said Ruth to Jessie that evening in private, with flushed cheeks and eager eyes, “I shall be able to carry out my little plot, and see whether I am right, now that I have at last got Captain Bream down to Yarmouth.”
“What little plot?” asked Jessie.
“I may not tell you yet,” said Ruth with a laugh. “I shall let you know all about it soon.”
But Ruth was wrong. There was destined to be a slip ’twixt the cup and her sweet lip just then, for that same evening Captain Bream received a telegram from London, which induced him to leave Yarmouth hastily to see a friend, he said, and keep an old-standing engagement. He promised, however, to be back in two or three days at furthest.
Chapter Fifteen.
A Cloud comes over Ruth’s Hopes, and dims their Brightness
To prevent the reader supposing that there is any deep-laid scheme or profound mystery with which we mean to torment him during the course of our tale, we may as well say at once that the little plot, which Ruth had in view, and which began to grow quite into a romance the longer she pondered it, was neither more nor less than to bring Captain Bream and Mrs David Bright face to face.
Ruth had what we may style a constructive mind. Give her a few rough materials, and straight-way she would build a castle with them. If she had not enough of material, she immediately invented more, and thus continued her castle-building. Being highly imaginative and romantic, her structures were sometimes amazing edifices, at which orthodox architects might have turned up their noses—and with some reason, too, for poor little Ruth’s castles were built frequently on bad foundations, and sometimes even in the air, so that they too often fell in splendid ruins at her feet!
It would not be just however, to say that none of Ruth’s buildings stood firm. Occasionally she built upon a good foundation. Now and then she made a straight shot and hit the mark. For instance, the little edifice of cuffs and comforters to the North Sea trawlers survived, and remains to the present day a monument of usefulness, (which few monuments are), and of well-placed philanthropy. It may not, perhaps, be just to say that Ruth actually laid the foundation—conceived the first idea—of that good work, but she was at all events among the first builders, became an active overseer, and did much of the work with her own hands. Still, as we have said, too many of Ruth’s castles came to the ground, and the poor thing was so well used to the sight of falling material that she had at last begun to be quite expert in detecting the first symptoms of dissolution, and often regarded them with despairing anxiety. It was so with her when Captain Bream was summoned so suddenly away from Yarmouth.
Eagerly, anxiously, had she planned to get him down to that town for the purpose of confronting him with Mrs David Bright—the reason being that, from various things the captain had said to her at different times, and from various remarks that Mrs Bright had made on sundry occasions, she felt convinced that the North Sea fisherman’s wife was none other than Captain Bream’s long-lost sister!
It would be well-nigh impossible, as well as useless, to investigate the process of reasoning and the chain of investigation by which she came to this conclusion, but having once laid the foundation, she began to build on it with her wonted enthusiasm, and with a hopefulness that partial failure could not destroy.
The captain’s departure, just when she hoped to put the copestone on her little edifice was a severe blow, for it compelled her to shut up her hopes and fears in her own breast, and, being of a sympathetic nature, that was difficult. But Ruth was a wise little woman as well as sympathetic. She had sense enough to know that it might be a tremendous disappointment to Captain Bream, if, after having had his hopes raised, it were discovered that Mrs Bright was not his sister. Ruth had therefore made up her mind not to give the slightest hint to him, or to any one else, about her hopes, until the matter could be settled by bringing the two together, when, of course, they would at once recognise each other.
Although damped somewhat by this unlooked-for interruption to her little schemes, she did not allow her efforts to flag.
“I see,” she said one day, on entering the theological library, where Jessie, having laid down a worsted cuff which she had been knitting, was deep in Leslie’s Short and Easy method with the Deists, and Kate, having dropped a worsted comforter, had lost herself in Chalmers’s Astronomical Discourses. “I see you are both busy, so I won’t disturb you. I only looked in to say that I’m going out for an hour or two.”
“We are never too busy, darling,” said Jessie, “to count your visits an interruption. Would you like us to walk with you?”
“N–no. Not just now. The fact is, I am going out on a little private expedition,” said Ruth, pursing her mouth till it resembled a cherry.
“Oh! about that little plot?” asked Jessie, laughing. Ruth nodded and joined in the laugh, but would not commit herself in words.
“Now, don’t work too hard, Kate,” she cried with an arch look as she turned to leave.
“It is harder work than you suppose, Miss Impudence,” said Kate; “what with cuffs and contradictions, comforters and confusion, worsted helmets and worse theology, my brain seems to be getting into what the captain calls a sort of semi-theological lop-scowse that quite unfits me for anything. Go away, you naughty girl, and carry out your dark plots, whatever they are.”
Ruth ran off laughing, and soon found herself at the door of Mrs Bright’s humble dwelling.
Now, Mrs Bright, although very fond of her fair young visitor, had begun, as we have seen, to grow rather puzzled and suspicious as to her frequent inquiries into her past history.
“You told me, I think, that your maiden name was Bream,” said Ruth, after a few remarks about the weather and the prospects of the Short Blue fleet, etcetera.
“Yes, Miss Ruth,” answered Mrs Bright; but the answer was so short and her tone so peculiar that poor scheming little Ruth was quelled at once. She did not even dare to say another word on the subject nearest her heart at the time, and hastily, if not awkwardly, changed the subject to little Billy.
Here indeed she had touched a theme in regard to which Mrs Bright was always ready to respond.
“Ah! he is a good boy, is Billy,” she said, “an uncommonly good boy—though he is not perfect by any means. And he’s a little too fond of fighting. But, after all, it’s not for its own sake he likes it, dear boy! It’s only when there’s a good reason for it that he takes to it. Did I ever tell you about his kicking a boy bigger than himself into the sea off the end of the pier?”
“No, you never told me that.”
“Well, this is how it was. There’s a small girl named Lilly Brass—a sweet little tot of four years old or thereabouts, and Billy’s very fond of her. Lilly has a brother named Tommy, who’s as full of mischief as an egg is full of meat, and he has a trick of getting on the edge of the pier near where they live, and tryin’ to walk on it and encouraging Lilly to follow him. The boy had been often warned not to do it, but he didn’t mind, and my Billy grew very angry about it.
“‘I don’t care about little Brass himself mother,’ said Billy to me one day; ‘he may tumble in an’ be drownded if he likes, but I’m afeared for little Lilly, for she likes to do what he does.’
“So, one day Billy saw Tommy Brass at his old tricks, with Lilly looking on, quite delighted, and what did my boy do, think ye? He went up to Brass, who was bigger and older than himself, and gave him such a hearty kick that it sent him right off into the sea. The poor boy could not swim a stroke, and the water was deep, so my Billy, who can swim like a fish, jumped in after him and helped to get him safe ashore. Tommy Brass was none the worse; so, after wringing the water out of his clothes, he went up to Billy and gave him a slap in the face. Billy is not a boastful boy. He does not speak much when he’s roused; but he pulled off his coat and gave Brass such a thump on the nose that he knocked him flat on the sand. Up he jumped, however, in a moment and went at Billy furiously, but he had no chance. My boy was too active for him. He jumped a’ one side, struck out his leg, and let him tumble over it, giving him a punch on the head as he went past that helped to send his nose deeper into the sand. At last he beat him entirely, and then, as he was puttin’ on his jacket again, he said—‘Tommy Brass, it ain’t so much on account o’ that slap you gave me, that I’ve licked you, but because you ’ticed Lilly into danger. And, you mark what I say: every time I catch you walkin’ on that there pier-edge, or hear of you doin’ of it, I’ll give you a lickin’.’
“Tommy Brass has never walked on that pier-edge since,” concluded Mrs Bright, “but I’m sorry to say that ever since that day Lilly Brass has refused to have a word to say to Billy, and when asked why, she says, ‘’cause he sowsed an’ whacked my brudder Tommy!’”
Thus did Mrs Bright entertain her visitor with comment and anecdote about Billy until she felt at last constrained to leave without having recovered courage to broach again the subject which had brought her to the fisherman’s home.
That same afternoon Mrs Bright paid a friendly visit to the wife of her husband’s mate.
“I can’t think whatever Miss Ruth Dotropy is so curious about me for, she’s bin at me again,” said Mrs Bright to Mrs Davidson, who was busy with her needle on some part of the costume of her “blessed babby,” which lay, like an angel, in its little crib behind the door.
“P’r’aps it’s all along of her bein’ so interested in you,” replied pretty Mrs Davidson. “She asks me many odd questions at times about myself, and my dear Joe, and the babby—though I admit she don’t inquire much about my past life.”
“Well, that’s not surprising,” said Mrs Bright with a laugh, as she sat down on a stool to have a chat. “You see, Maggie, you haven’t got much of a past life to inquire about, and Joe is such a good man that you’ve no call to be suspecting anything; but it wasn’t always so with my dear David. I wouldn’t say it even to you, Maggie, if it wasn’t that everybody in Yarmouth knows it—my David drinks hard sometimes, and although I know he’s as true as gold to me, an’ never broke the laws of the land, everybody won’t believe that, you know, and the dear man might fall under suspicion.”
“But you don’t suppose, if he did,” said Mrs Davidson, with a look of surprise, “that Miss Ruth would go about actin’ the part of a detective, do you?”
“Well, no, I don’t,” replied her friend, looking somewhat puzzled. “All the same it is mysterious why she should go on as she’s bin doin’, asking me what my maiden name was, and who my relations were, and if I ever had any brothers, and when and where I first met wi’ David. But whatever her reasons may be I’m resolved that she’ll get nothing more out of me.”
“Of course,” returned Maggie, “you must do as you think right in that matter. All I can say is, I would tell Miss Ruth all that was in my mind without any fear that she’d abuse my confidence.”
“Ah! Maggie, I might say that too if my mind and conscience were as clear as yours. But they’re not. It is true I have long ago brought my sins to Jesus and had them washed away in His precious blood. And I never cease to pray for my dear David, but—but—”
“Don’t you fear, Nell,” said Mrs Davidson, earnestly, and in a tone of encouragement. “Your prayer is sure to be answered.”
“Oh! Maggie, I try to believe it—indeed I do. But when I see David go down to that—that public-house, and come up the worse o’ liquor, an’ sometimes little Billy with him with a cigar in his sweet little mouth an’ the smell o’ drink on him, my heart fails me, for you know what an awful snare that drink is, once it gets the upper hand—and—”
Poor Mrs Bright fairly broke down at this point for a few seconds; and no wonder, for, not even to her most confidential and sympathetic friend could she tell of the terrible change for the worse that came over her husband when the accursed fire-water burned in his veins.
“Nell,” said Maggie, laying her work in her lap and taking her friend’s hand. “Don’t give way like that. God would never ask us to pray for one another, if He didn’t mean to answer us. Would He, now?”
“That’s true, Maggie, that’s true,” said Mrs Bright, much comforted. “I never thought of that before. You’re young, but you’re wise, dear. Of course, the good Lord will never mock us, and if there’s anything I have asked for of late, it has been the salvation of David and Billy. What was it, Maggie, that made your Joe first turn his thoughts to the Lord?”
“It was one of his mates. You remember when he sailed wi’ that good man, Singin’ Peter? Well, Peter used often to speak to him about his soul to no purpose; but that fine man, Luke Trevor, who also sailed wi’ Singin’ Peter at the time, had a long talk with Joe one night, an’ the Holy Spirit made use of his words, for Joe broke down an’ gave in. They’re both wi’ your David and Billy now, so you may be sure they won’t throw away the chance they have of speakin’ to ’em.”
“God grant them success!” murmured Mrs Bright, earnestly.
“Amen!” responded the younger woman. “But, Nell, you haven’t told me yet what you think o’ the Miss Seawards.”
“Think? I think that next to Miss Ruth they are the sweetest ladies I ever met,” returned Mrs Bright with enthusiasm. “They are so modest and humble, that when they are putting themselves about to serve you, they almost make you feel that you’re doing them a favour. Don’t you remember only last week when they came to see poor Jake’s boy that was nearly drowned, and insisted on sitting up with him all night—first one and then the other taking her turn till daylight, because Mrs Jake was dead-drunk and not able for anything.”
“Remember it?” exclaimed Maggie, “I should think I does, and the awful way Mrs Jake swore at them afore she rightly understood what was wrong.”
“Well, did you hear what Mrs Jake said in the afternoon of that same day?”
“No—except that she was more civil to ’em, so I was told.”
“Civil! yes, she was more civil indeed. She’d got quite sober by the afternoon, and the neighbours told her how near the boy was to death, and that the doctor said if it hadn’t been for the wise and prompt measures taken by the Miss Seawards before he arrived, he didn’t believe the boy would have lived—when they told her that, she said nothing. When the Miss Seawards came back in the afternoon, they tapped so gently at the door that you would have thought they were beggars who expected a scolding, an’ when Mrs Jake cried out gruffly in her man-like voice, ‘Who’s that?’ they replied as softly as if they had been doing some mischief, ‘May we come in?’ ‘May you come in?’ shouted Mrs Jake, so that you might have heard her half way down the street, as she flung the door wide open, ‘may angels from heaven come in? yes, you may come in!’ an’ with that she seized the younger one round the neck an’ fairly hugged her, for you see Mrs Jake has strong feelin’s, an’ is very fond of her boy, an’ then she went flop down on a chair, threw her apron over her head, and howled. I can call it by no other name.”
“The poor ladies were almost scared, and didn’t seem rightly to know how to take it, and Miss Kate—the younger one you know—had her pretty new summer dress awfully crushed by the squeeze, as well as dirtied, for Mrs Jake had been washin’, besides cleaning up a bit just before they arrived.”
“Well, I never!” exclaimed Maggie in great admiration. “I always thought there was a soft spot in Mrs Jake’s heart, if only a body could find it out.”
“My dear,” said Mrs Bright, impressively, “there’s a soft spot I believe in everybody’s heart, though in some hearts it’s pretty well choked up an’ overlaid—”
At that moment a bursting yell from the crib behind the door went straight to the soft spot in Mrs Davidson’s heart, and sank deeply into it.