Little Miss Joy Part 13

"You oughtn't to do any such thing," said Mr. Boyd. "You have been a widow now between eleven and twelve years. A good man wants to make you his wife--and," said Uncle Bobo, slapping his knee, "and why shouldn't he?"

"Please do not speak of it, Mr. Boyd," Patience said. "Do you think that I could ever marry any man while I am waiting for my husband's return, and now, too, for my boy's? No! it is only pain to me to think that any of my friends could think I should forget."

"You'll see the boy safe and sound before long, and you'll find the salt water has washed a lot of nonsense out of him. He will come back, but the other--never!"

Mrs. Harrison said no more, but climbed up the narrow staircase to Joy's room.

"Oh, Goody dear! I _am_ so glad you are come," Joy said, stretching out her little thin arms and winding them round her friend's neck. "I have been fidgeting so, hearing you talking to Uncle Bobo downstairs.

And I've been very snappy to Susan, because she will have it I ought to try to stand. Goody dear, I _can't_."

"Susan knows that as well as I do, dearie. I think she tries to make you out much stronger than you are, to comfort Uncle Bobo."

"_Dear_ Uncle Bobo!" the child said. "I wish he would not fret about me. Goody! I was dreaming of a horse tearing after me, just as that horse did that evening; and then it wasn't a horse at all, but it was great roaring waves, and I thought Jack was with me, and we were going to be drowned."

The lines on Mrs. Harrison's forehead deepened, and she tried to say cheerfully--

"Dreams do not mean anything, dear; and it is said they always go by contrary, you know."

Then Mrs. Harrison began to settle Joy's pillows, and put back the curtains so that she might see from her bed the strip of blue sky above the opposite roofs and through a slight aperture between the two houses, where Joy could on clear nights see two or three stars, and at certain, and what seemed to her very long intervals, the moon, on her lonely way through the heavens.

"Susan says the wedding will be to-morrow, and that you will have to stay to keep shop while Miss Pinckney is away."

"Yes, dear; and Bet is coming to be with you."

Joy sighed, and said softly--

"Poor Bet! she does love me very much; but, dear Goody, _I_ don't love her as I love you. When Jack comes home, I shall tell him how kind you have been to me, and we shall be so happy; only I expect Jack will be vexed to see me lying here, instead of running out to meet him."

Mrs. Harrison could only turn away her head to hide her tears as Joy went on:

"Uncle Bobo said the other day, when he came up and found me crying, just a little bit, 'Why, I shall have to call you little Miss Sorrowful!' And then he seemed choked, and bustled away. I made up my mind then I would try to smile always when he came. I should not like him to call me little Miss Sorrowful, it seems to hurt him so. And then he always says he ought to have s.n.a.t.c.hed hold of me when the horse came galloping after us, and that he ought to have been knocked down, not me. But that is quite a mistake. Uncle Bobo is wanted in the shop, and I don't think I could have done instead of him; and then it would have been worse for him to bear the pain than it is for me; for when he had the gout in his toe, he did shout out, and threw the things about when Susan went to bathe it. So it is best as it is," was little Miss Joy's conclusion; "isn't it Goody?"

The wedding came off the next day, and the row was greatly excited by the event.

Miss Pinckney was dressed in a cream-coloured cashmere, trimmed with lace, and she wore an apology for a bonnet, with orange blossoms, and a large square of tulle thrown over it.

Susan, who reported the appearance of the wedding party, which she watched leaning out of Joy's window, exclaimed:

"All in white, or next to white! Deary me! If I was fifty, and had a yellow skin, I wouldn't dress like a young girl. There she goes mincing down the row, and there's a coach waiting at the end with white horses. And there goes Mrs. Skinner looking like a lamp-post, dressed in a grey alpaca; she looks as grim as ever. And there's poor Bet--well, to be sure, what a frock and bonnet! They belonged to her mother, let alone her grandmother, or p'r'aps to that pretty daughter of hers, who ran off--she was that ill-treated by her mother she couldn't bear it! Ah! they are a queer lot, those Skinners; they do say Joe Skinner is a queer customer, and that he is so hard up, that's why he's married that old lady. He will make her money spin, and there won't be much left at the end of a year. Serve her right. I've no patience with folks making themselves ridiklous at her time of life.

Why, my dear!" Susan said, growing confidential, as she drew her head in from the window, when the little following of girls and boys who lived in the row had returned from seeing the last of Miss Pinckney--"Why, my dear! I could have married, last fall, the lamplighter who has looked after the lamps in the row for years. But I knew better. I told him I was forty-eight, and he was scarce thirty-eight, and I was not going to make myself a laughing-stock. And he went and married a young girl, and has made a good husband. So that's all right!"

It was the same afternoon that Mrs. Harrison, being installed in her sister's place at the shop, Bet came breathlessly up the narrow stairs to say--

"Grandmother wants to see you."

"Oh! I'd rather not, please. I feel so afraid of your grandmother.

Don't, please don't let her come."

But it was too late. Mrs. Skinner's spare figure was already at the door. She was dressed in her wedding gown and bonnet, and came to Joy's bed, standing there like a grey spectre, her bonnet and face all of the same dull grey as the gown.

Joy turned up her wistful eyes to the hard, deeply-lined face, and her lips quivered.

"If you please," she said, "I am glad you will spare Bet, while Goody is so busy."

But Mrs. Skinner did not speak--not a word. "I am getting better," Joy continued; "at least the doctors say so; but--but I can't stand or walk yet, so I am glad to have Bet."

Mrs. Skinner had all this time been scanning little Miss Joy's features with a keen scrutiny. Then, after a few minutes, she jerked out:

"I hope you'll soon get about again; you are welcome to keep Bet;" and then she turned, and her footfall on the stairs was heard less and less distinct, till the sound ceased altogether.

"Your grandmother is--is not like other people," little Miss Joy ventured to say. "I don't like her; but I beg your pardon, I ought not to say so to you."

"And do you think _I_ like her?" Bet exclaimed vehemently. "At first I thought I'd try, and I did try; but she was always so hard. She loves Uncle Joe, I think, though she is angry with him for marrying Miss Pinckney, and lately I have heard high words between them."

And now Bet took off her wedding bonnet, and sat down by Joy's side, perfectly content that she was thought worthy to be her companion.

"You'll tell me if you want anything," she said. "And you won't mind if I am stupid and blunder, will you?"

"No," Joy said faintly. "Have you got your work, or a book? Give me my crochet. I like to try to do something, though lying flat it is rather tiring."

Bet did as she was told, and then said humbly, "I shan't talk unless you wish me to talk;" and the poor girl settled herself by the window till a bell rang.

"That is for you to go down for my tea," Joy said. "It saves Susan's legs, you know."

Bet was only too happy to be of use, and hurried down stairs at once for the tray.

"Be careful now," Susan said; "and don't fall upstairs and break the crockery. There's a cup for yourself, and Mrs. Harrison has sent over a bit of wedding-cake. It's very black, and I don't like the looks of the sugar; but I dare say it may eat better than it looks."

The day wore on to evening, and the row was quiet, when Joy, who had been lying very still, suddenly said--

"I have been dreaming of Jack again--Jack Harrison. I think he must be coming home."

"Did you care for Jack Harrison very much?"

"Very much," said Joy; "he was always so good to me. That last day before he ran away he lent me that pretty book you were looking at, and said we would learn those verses at the beginning together, and I never saw him again. That was a dreadfully sad time; and then, not content with being very hard on Jack, Miss Pinckney and your uncle said he was a thief. Think of that! Jack a thief! Miss Pinckney said he had got the key of a drawer and taken out a little box, where she kept the money. There were four or five pounds in it."

"A box!" Bet said; "was it a big box?"

"Oh no; dear Goody says it would go into anybody's pocket. A little box with a padlock and a little key. I knew Jack did not take it, but of course as he ran away that very day it looks _like_ it. Even Susan shakes her head, and I never talk of Jack to her. But," said Joy, "I am tired now, and I think I'll take what Uncle Bobo calls 'forty winks.'"

Everything was very quiet after that; and when Bet saw Joy was asleep, she crept downstairs, and in the shop saw Mrs. Harrison.

Miss Pinckney's shutters were closed, and she felt free to come over and have a last look at Joy.

"A little box! a little box!" Bet repeated to herself as she went home.

"A box so small it would go into anybody's pocket." And Bet that night lay awake pondering many things, and repeating very often, "A little box!"