CHAPTER I

The Old House

"NOW, Audrey!"

"Yes, Aunt Cordelia?"

"That's the third clean pinafore that you've had this week," said Aunt Cordelia severely, "and it's only Thursday. Now, Audrey!"

And when Aunt Cordelia said, "Now, Audrey!" The little girl who was addressed knew that something was seriously amiss.

She was a pretty little girl, with fair hair and brown eyes, and the warm summer sun had tanned her as brown as the nuts in the window of Aunt Cordelia's shop. She stood in the corner of the little back parlour looking ruefully at her pinafore, which was almost as black as if she had sent it up the chimney for five minutes' change of air.

"Now, Audrey!" repeated Aunt Cordelia more solemnly than before.

The poor child could not bear up against this last terrible appeal, and bursting into tears, she sobbed—

"I wish there weren't such things as pinafores; I do wish there weren't!"

"No such things as pinafores?" said Aunt Cordelia. "Why, what would become of careless little girls' frocks, if there were no nice pinafores to cover them, I should like to know?"

"I hate pinafores," sobbed the child, taking no notice of her aunt's words; "I wish the Queen would say nobody was ever to wear them again!"

"For shame, Audrey," said Aunt Cordelia, "you should never say you hate anything; it's very wicked indeed! Least of all you should never hate pinafores, that keep you nice and clean and tidy."

"But that's just what they don't do," said Audrey. "They will get black and grimy. I can't ever have a bit of fun because of them."

Then, as she dried her tears, a bright thought struck her, and she said, "Couldn't I have a black pinafore, Aunt Cordelia, and then it wouldn't show the dirt, would it now?"

"Well," said her aunt, laughing in spite of herself, "it will come to that one of these days, I expect. Now go and get a clean pinafore at once; and remember that's four this week," she called after her, as the little girl ran upstairs.

It was a quaint old house in which Audrey and her aunt, Miss Palmer, lived. Miss Palmer loved to boast about it to the customers who came to the shop. It was three hundred years old, she told them, and the wainscot was real oak, and the bannisters on the stairs were carved, and there were curious old cupboards with black oak doors, and there was a chimney so wide that none of the sweep's brushes were large enough to sweep it.

But though Miss Palmer was very proud of her old house, which had been in the family for so many years that the family had quite lost count of their number, yet it caused her a great deal of worry and anxiety. There never was such a place for dust as that old house; it collected in every corner, it lay upon the window-sills, and it settled upon the bright dish-covers and pewter jugs in the kitchen.

With this dust Miss Palmer was always waging war. From morning till night—week in and week out—she fought perseveringly with the ever-gathering dust, and tried to make her house as prim and as neat as her tidy soul longed to see it. But just as Audrey's pinafores would get black, so the old house would get dusty, and the two together brought many a line of care into Miss Palmer's forehead.

Audrey had lived with her aunt since she was a fortnight old. Her father was a baker in a town two hundred miles away. She had never seen him, and he had never seen her since her aunt had carried her off, a tiny, sickly baby, nearly eight years ago. Audrey's mother had died soon after she was born, and her father had sent a piteous letter to his sister Cordelia, telling her he did not know what would become of him and of his nine motherless children, now Alice was gone.

On receipt of that letter, Miss Palmer had at once put up her shop-shutters, packed a small carpetbag, locked up her old house, and had set off for the town, two hundred miles away, where her brother lived. She had only remained one night, for her business could not be neglected; but she had brought the baby back with her, having adopted it as her own.

A curious little thing Audrey looked, as Miss Palmer rolled her in a warm shawl before starting on her homeward journey, for even then she had a quantity of hair, which made her little face look, if possible, smaller and more fragile. But Miss Palmer, although she was an old maid, had had some experience with babies, having at one time been nurse in a respectable family. So the little one had every care and attention bestowed upon her, and had grown up a healthy, hearty child, always untidy, and never clean for half an hour together, but yet with cheeks like roses, and as plump and strong as even Miss Palmer's heart could wish.

She was very fond of the little girl, although she did not often show it. And though she sometimes rebuked her and said, "Now, Audrey!" in a voice which made her tremble, she was not unkind to her, and did not mean to be harsh.

"It was all for Audrey's good," she said to herself.

Thus Audrey, in spite of her pinafores, did not lead at all an unhappy life. She went to a private school in the next street, where an old woman tried to keep order amongst thirty or forty children, and, at such times as she succeeded in making her voice heard, to teach them reading, writing, and a few sums.

Audrey was a quick child, and learnt well all that it was possible to learn in such a place. She could read easily and distinctly, and would have been praised for her writing, had she not covered both herself and her copybook with blots. But the sums were her delight, and she was fast coming to the end of all the arithmetic which Miss Tapper was able to impart.

But there was one thing which Audrey had never been taught, either at school or at home, and that was the power of the love of Jesus. Her aunt made her say a prayer night and morning, but she never talked to her of the dear Lord who died instead of her, and who longed for her to be His loving and obedient child. If Audrey was good she was praised, if she was naughty she was blamed; but no one taught her who alone could make her good, or could teach her not to be naughty.

She was like a little ship beaten about by the waves, driven first one way and then another by the storm of temper on the wind of wilfulness. She had not yet learnt whose hand must be on the helm if she was to sail onward, and to reach the harbour in safety.

When Audrey appeared downstairs in her clean pinafore, she stood at the shop-door watching her aunt, who was weighing out a pound of tea for a customer—a stout, rosy woman with a basket on her arm.

"Aunt Cordelia," began the child; but the customer's tongue was going so fast that her aunt did not hear her.

"Aunt Cordelia," said the child again, as the woman, having finished her long story, took up her parcels, put them in her basket, and departed.

"Well, Audrey?"

"May I go out and play, Aunt Cordelia?"

"Go out and play? No, indeed!" said her aunt indignantly. "Go out and dirty another clean pinafore? Not if I know it! Take your doll and play with it in the window-seat, and keep yourself clean for five minutes, if you can do such a thing."

Audrey obeyed without a word, for she had been taught to do as she was told. She went into the parlour and took up her poor old wooden doll Olivia, who had lost all the colour from her cheeks and all the hair from her head. Audrey did not play with her; she stood with her in her arms gazing through the small square diamond-paned window into her playground outside.