CHAPTER VI.

JOSIE'S HOME.

NOT very far from the aged mansion in Ansty Court, where Ailie Carter's home had been so long, another old-fashioned house stood, in another old-fashioned street—narrow, but clean, fresh, and airy. This, too, was a large building, with numberless small windows, but each was furnished with white curtains or blinds, and on the lower window-ledges were long wooden boxes, filled with summer flowers.

All up the wide stairs lay Brussels carpeting, and the oil-cloth in the hall, of alternate dark-brown and red diamonds, had a pleasant effect. At about six o'clock Josie stood there, waiting for the sound of the tea-bell, which was usually rung to summon her from the play-room. She whiled away the time by stepping slowly from one diamond-shape to another, with all possible care to avoid treading on the light brown ground intervening. With a grave face, and hands folded loosely together, she went through her self-appointed exercise, pacing cautiously across the hall and back again, while her tiny terrier pattered daintily in her rear. Evidently Snap thought his mistress must be about some very important occupation, by the exceeding pains he took not to hinder her.

Then a side-door opened, and a gentleman, coming out, remarked in a pleasant voice—well matched by the pleasant face to which it belonged—"Josie, I did not know you were here."

"I'm waiting for the tea-bell."

"Five minutes since it rang, and mother and I have been looking out for you ever since."

"Why, Leveson, I never heard it."

"Absent state of mind, I am afraid! Come along, dear."

Josie went in with a rush, and seated herself at the oval table, upon which was a bunch of flowers in a tall white vase, a blue glass snake being twisted round it. At the head of the table sat a lady in a widow's cap, with a very sweet sad face. She had not passed middle life, but trouble had drawn lines upon her brow, and set a stamp of mournful resignation upon the lips.

"Mother, only think, I never heard the bell," said Josie.

"What were you thinking about, I wonder?"

"Ever so many things. Oh, what beauties of flowers. Did Leveson get them for you? Ah, I thought so. Oh, what beauties!"

Josie buried nose and eyes in the bunch, and then sat up to feast the latter on white moss rose-buds, pink tea-roses, fragrant heliotropes, variegated geraniums, and drooping fuchsias, while busied with a slice of bread and butter.

"Are they not lovely, mother? If only we had a garden, and I could have some flowers like those growing."

Mrs. Therlock sighed, but merely said: "Did you have a nice walk to-day?"

"I suppose it was," said Josie. "I'm tired of the streets. I do wish we could be in the country. Oh, I saw such a poor ragged little girl to-day."

"Where was she?" asked Leveson, thinking what numbers of such little ones were to be seen in all directions.

"Among the shops," said Josie vaguely. "And she was starving."

"How do you know, dear?" asked Mrs. Therlock.

"Why, she told me! I had run on from nurse, and she told me."

"But, my dear Josie, I cannot have you leave nurse when you are out walking in the streets," said Mrs. Therlock, with a nervous flush. "You don't know what might happen to you. I must speak to nurse. What could she have been thinking of?"

"She was quite near," said Josie. "But I saw the little girl crying, and I asked her what was the matter, and she said she was starving, and I'm sure she looked, oh, so hungry! Her frock was all rags, and not at all clean, and her arms were as thin—as thin as sticks."

"What was she like?" asked Mrs. Therlock, seeming anxious still.

"Why, she was like that, mamma—as thin as thin could be, and not a bit of colour in her face, and such great black eyes, they almost frightened me. She told me her father was dead, and her mother was in prison—jail, I mean, but that's the same thing, isn't it?—was in jail for stealing a loaf. She had stolen it because she was hungry, but I told the little girl how wicked it was to steal, and she did look so ashamed, you can't think. I am sure she wouldn't steal, though nurse was so unkind, and said right before her that she would follow her mother to jail. I'm sure the little girl won't, for she looked as honest as honest could be; and I hadn't a penny in my pocket, and I wanted her to come here for my other penny, but nurse said she wasn't to come. Should you have minded, mother?"

"I like you to help those in trouble, dear, but of course you must do as nurse tells you. Only I will say to her, that if you see the little girl again, you may give her something, or send her here for some bread."

"Where does she live, Josie?" asked Leveson.

"Somewhere about, I suppose," said Josie. "I wish I had asked her. I never thought of that. You couldn't find her out, could you?"

"What is her name?"

"I didn't ask. She was just my size."

"I am afraid I might find hundreds of half-starved little girls about your size, without falling in with the right one."

"I wish I had remembered," said Josie. "If only I knew her name, or where she lives. I liked the poor little girl's face so much. I am sure it would be quite pretty if it were clean,—but she did look so very very miserable. Oh, now I remember, she said she had no home, and she had slept under the stairs last night, but she didn't say what stairs. Leveson, wasn't it very wicked of her mother to steal? Are people always put in prison when they steal?"

"When they are found out, and it can be proved against them."

"And isn't it very wicked?"

"Yes. Very wrong," said Leveson, resting his arm on the back of Josie's chair. "It is wrong to steal, and wrong to tell lies, and wrong to covet, and wrong to give way to temper. None of us are perfect."

"But it isn't so bad to get into a passion, as it would be to steal," said Josie, with a guilty look up from under her eyelashes.

"How do you feel when you are in a passion?"

"What do you mean?"

"Do you feel loving and affectionate to all the world—especially the person who has offended you?"

"I know what you want me to say, and what you will tell me after, so I won't say it," responded Josie.

"What do I want you to say?" asked Leveson.

"Why, that I hate everybody at those times," said Josie unguardedly.

"And is it true?"

"Of course. Now, Leveson, you've made me say it after all."

"And what was I going to say in answer?"

"You may say it if you like."

"I would rather you should."

"'He that hateth his brother is a murderer,'" said Josie. "But nurse isn't my brother, so when I hated her this afternoon, because she wouldn't let me help the little girl, it wasn't like that."

"I fancy the term may be taken generally, and all mankind are brethren in a sense. But do you never hate any one except nurse?"

"N—o," said Josie.

"Not me, for instance?"

"Leveson, I wish you wouldn't ask. I did once last week for half an hour, when you shut me up in my room alone one day. It wasn't that, though," said Josie, bursting into tears. "I wasn't a murderer at all."

Leveson leant forward, and kissed away the tears affectionately. "You know what the Bible says, Josie, so I won't press that point. Of course it means in spirit, not in deed. I only wanted you to see that we may commit sins ourselves, quite as black in the sight of God, as those which may seem worst in the eyes of men. I'm not excusing the sin of stealing—don't think that. Sin is sin, in whatever shape it comes, only I sometimes think that our little failings, as we call them, and our careless yielding to slight temptation, may wear as dark a dye in God's sight as the sudden desperate act of a poor half-famished creature, who is driven to it by utter want and misery."

"And wasn't it right to put her in prison?" asked Josie.

"Perfectly right. Crime must be punished; but we must not be like the Pharisee, Josie—'I thank Thee that I am not as other men are.' Better one and all of us to say humbly before God—'Be merciful to me a sinner.'"

Josie sat thoughtfully for a minute, and then finished her bread and preserve without a word.

"I know what," she said, getting up after tea. "I'll get nurse to take me that very same walk every day for a week, and look out for the little girl."

"A good plan," said Leveson, and he heard no more till Mrs. Therlock had left the room, when Josie came to his side.

"I wish—I do wish we could go to the sea or to the country."

"I wish you could, dear."

"It would be good for mother too. Why don't you persuade her?"

"I have tried in vain. You know as well as I do why she cannot bear to be away from London."

"And I suppose she means to stay here all her life, and I'll never see anything but dirty London streets," said Josie pettishly. "I didn't mean to be cross, Leveson, so don't look grave, but I do so want a change, and I'm tired of always going the old old round, and never having anything fresh."

"It is hard for you, Josie, but you must try to bear it patiently, for mother's sake."

"It doesn't do her any good. I wouldn't mind if it did. She only keeps just as melancholy. It isn't as if we could do any good—to Vi, I mean—by staying."

"Mother lives upon hope, Josie, and we must not try to destroy that hope, however small its foundation. Come, be a brave little woman, and make the best of things. I'll take you a run down the river to Margate one of these days."

"Oh, do. I shouldn't mind anything if you were always at home. If only you were curate here, or if we could go and live where you are, I wouldn't mind, then, being in London all the year round; or even if you weren't so busy, and could come and see me often."

"Or if you could have any single thing that you have not now," said Leveson, shaking his head. "No, no, Josie, that isn't being brave and contented. Your business is to be poor mother's little comforter, and it ought to be your happiness as well."

"And so it is," murmured Josie. "Only—only—if—"

"Only you want a little dash of river and sea-water to freshen you up. You shall manage it some day soon, or I will manage it for you. A sprinkling of spray is a capital remedy for discontent, and I'll take care that you try it before long. Will that do?"

"Oh, you are such a nice kind Leveson," said Josie.

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