Chapter IV

THE next day, Nelly went down to Mrs. Kirkland's shop, and, not without some trepidation, asked for Miss Powell, who was not to be seen.

"She is busy up-stairs," said the young lady behind the counter. "Can't I get what you want, as well as Miss Powell?"

"No, ma'am," replied Nelly. "She told me to ask for her if she was not in the shop."

"It is some one of her ragged regiment of Sunday-scholars," said a lady who was buying lace at the counter where Nelly stood. "She is always bringing just such objects into the school. I get downright vexed at her, sometimes."

"I suppose the Sunday-school was made for just such children to begin with," said the shop-girl.

"They might go to the mission school, then," replied the strange lady. "It does not seem as though that elegant school-room could be meant for such ragamuffins."

"You can go up-stairs, my little girl, and see Miss Powell," said the shop-girl, glancing at Nelly, and seeing, from her rising colour and eyes filled with tears, that she had heard and understood the conversation. "You will find her sitting by the window, at work; and please carry her this red braid and ask her if there is any more like it. Will you?"

"Yes, ma'am," replied Nelly, brightening up, and feeling comforted, as Miss Kirkland intended she should, by being intrusted with this little commission. "Shall I come and tell you what she says?"

"If you please," said Miss Kirkland; and Nelly skipped up the long stairs, feeling much relieved. She found Miss Powell sitting on a low seat by the window, working at a beautiful piece of embroidery. She had a large box by her side, filled with ends of worsted of every shade and colour, from which she now and then pulled out a thread. She was deeply engaged in counting stitches in her pattern; and Nelly, who often seemed to show an instinctive sense of good manners, stood by her in silence, waiting to be noticed.

"Ah, Nelly! Is this you?" said Miss Powell, looking up at last. "I was wondering what had become of you. How does your tatting get on?"

"I have learned to do it," said Nelly. "I thought I never should; but I did. But please, the lady down-stairs wants to know is there any more of this braid."

"Tell her there is a whole box on the upper shelf, with the tape. Can you remember that?"

"Yes, ma'am."

Nelly sped down with her errand, and, presently returning, produced her work for inspection.

Miss Powell smiled as she looked at it. "So you really did persevere, and learn! I am very glad. Do you know why? It is because that shows you have some resolution and some self-command. A good many little girls would have thrown it away in despair."

Again the ready tears came into Nelly's large eyes; but this time they were tears of joy and honest exultation.

"I was real glad, too," said she. "I liked to do it; and besides," she added, hanging down her head, "I thought if I could learn one thing I could another."

"Well?" said Miss Powell, as Nelly hesitated.

"I thought may-be I could learn to read; and I do want to learn so much."

"Why don't you go to school?—Oh, I remember, you told me;—because of minding the cow. Have you any one to help you about learning?"

"Kitty Brown said she would help me every night when I brought the milk," said Nelly. "I know the letters and some little words; and the lady Kitty lives with wrote down on this paper the name of the book I was to get," added she, producing the note Kitty had given her.

"'Second-hand copy,'" read Miss Powell. "Why don't you get a nice new book, Nelly?"

"Kitty said I had not money enough to buy a new one. A gentleman gave me ten cents, and granny said I might spend it as I liked. She is real good, granny is," added Nelly. "It isn't her fault that I don't go to school."

Miss Powell took up the tatting and examined it again. The last half-yard was done very well. The scollops were of the same size, firm and even; but it was embrowned to the colour of earth from Nelly's unwashed fingers.

"You have done this last part very nicely," said she. "I could hardly have done it better myself. But Nelly, you must learn to keep your work clean and white, or it will be worth nothing. See here; look at mine. I have had it about a long time, and yet it is not the least soiled. Do you wash your hands every time you take it up?"

"No, ma'am," replied Nelly, blushing. "I don't know as I ever thought of it. It isn't very easy for me to wash my hands clean. I get them so dirty with my work,—gathering swill and feeding the cow. But I will try what I can do."

"That is right. I dare say your work is dirty; but if you always wash your hands directly after it, and whenever they get soiled, you will find it much easier to keep them clean. See here, Mrs. Kirkland," said she, as Mrs. Kirkland came in from another room, "how well Nelly has succeeded with her tatting. She has really done nicely."

Mrs. Kirkland examined the work and commended it; and then, going to a show-case, she took out a spool of thread.

"See here, Nelly," said she; "if you will make all this spool of thread into tatting as nice as that last half-yard, and keep it clean and white, I will give you seventy-five cents for the work. But remember, it must be kept clean, and all the scollops must be of precisely the same size, or else I cannot take it."

"I will try my best," said Nelly, fairly trembling with delight. "I guess I can do it."

"Very well; you may try. It is not every little girl like you that I would trust with a spool of thread; but I don't think you will deceive me."

"You can ask the neighbours about us," said Nelly, with an honest pride that Mrs. Kirkland was pleased to see. "Granny sells milk to ever so many of them,—to Mrs. Powers, and Mrs. Vandake, and Mrs. Blair, and Mrs. Ward."

"Yes; I remember Mrs. Ward told me once last summer what nice rich milk she got," said Miss Powell. "Mrs. Kirkland, will you let me speak to you a moment?"

Mrs. Kirkland heard what Miss Powell had to say, and then turned to Nelly.

"Nelly, if I pay you ten cents beforehand, will you be sure that I shall not lose by it? Then you can buy a nice new spelling-book, instead of an old one; but you will only have sixty-five cents, instead of seventy-five, when you bring home your work."

"I should like it," said Nelly; "only I might be sick, or something, and then I couldn't pay you."

Mrs. Kirkland smiled. "I will run the risk of that. Here is your money, then; and I hope you will make your book very profitable."

"If you like to wait a little while, Nelly, I will go to the book-store with you," said Miss Powell. "I am going that way in about half an hour. You can sit down here by me and begin your work, if your hands are clean. Let me look at them."

Nelly had washed her face and hands with unusual care before leaving home, and she presented them with considerable confidence; but Miss Powell pointed out several places on the sides of the fingers which were certainly far from clean.

"I can't help it," said Nelly. "I rubbed and rubbed, but it wouldn't come off."

"Well, never mind. We will perhaps find a way to remedy it. Wind your shuttle full of thread, in the first place."

Nelly filled her shuttle, and was soon happily at work. Miss Powell showed her the best way of holding the shuttle, and how to pass the thread through her fingers without letting go her hold, by which she was enabled to work much more rapidly. Presently the lady she had seen below in the shop came up-stairs. She first stared and then laughed, as she saw Nelly on the stool by Miss Powell's side. Nelly, on her part, gave her a glance which was any thing but friendly, and then turned her stool entirely round, so as to bring her face to the window.

"Well, I declare! What airs!" said the lady, laughing. "One would think she was, an earl's daughter in disguise, at the very least."

Nelly smiled proudly as she remembered the Butlers of Glengall, and thought perhaps the lady was nearer the truth than she supposed.

"But do you dare trust such a child in the midst of all these pretty things?" said the stranger, in a lower tone, but still loud enough for Nelly to hear. "I should think she would steal all she could lay her hands on."

"We cannot always tell by the outside who steals and who does not," answered Mrs. Kirkland, dryly. "We catch people stealing, sometimes, who are much better dressed than poor Nelly."

Nelly could see the lady's face in a mirror which hung near, and she was astonished to see her colour till her face was as scarlet as the worsted she held in her hand. She said no more, but occupied herself in picking out shades of worsted from the pile before her.

"Miss Powell," said Nelly, presently, "what makes folks think that people cannot be honest because they are not dressed nice?"

"I will tell you what I think about it, Nelly; but I don't know that I can make you understand. In this country, almost every one who is industrious and saving can afford to dress neatly. If they cannot buy new things very often, they can at least wash and mend what they have. So, when a person sees another in rags, he is apt to think that person must be idle or shiftless; and idle people are very apt to be dishonest people. Now do you understand?"

Nelly nodded. "I think it is a great deal in knowing how," said she. "Kitty Brown's mother never lets her have the least bit of a hole in her things, even if she hasn't any of the same kind to mend with; and Kitty is the same. She keeps her clothes nice,—oh, ever so long! But somehow, I can't keep my things nice. My frock gets a hole in it, and, when I ask granny to mend it, she says, 'Yes, dear, but there's time enough;' and, the first thing I know, it catches on a nail, or something else, and away it goes. I think it is the best way to mend them the first minute."

"No doubt it is; but Nelly, you must learn to mend your own clothes. You are old enough."

"I wish I did know how," said Nelly.

"Well, we will take the matter into consideration. And, now, what do you think about going to Sunday-school?"

"I shouldn't like to go just now," said Nelly. "I haven't any nice frock to wear; and that lady said I was a ragamuffin. She said you were always bringing such objects into the school. What is an object?"

"It is nothing very bad, Nelly," said Miss Powell, laughing, but looking, as Nelly thought, a little vexed. "An object really means any thing that you can see, or take hold of, or think about. This work of mine is an object, and that pretty doll there, and that red basket. So, you see, it was not a very ugly name."

"It sounded ugly as she said it," persisted Nelly.

"Perhaps so. But Nelly, if you had a proper dress would you like to come to Sunday-school?"

Nelly hesitated.

"Say just what you think," said Miss Powell.

"I should like to learn to read a little, first," said Nelly. "I couldn't learn lessons unless I could read; and I should be ashamed, such a big girl as me, to go with the little ones. I should feel so awkward I shouldn't know what to do."

A good many people would have considered this false shame on Nelly's part, and would have endeavoured to reason or laugh her out of it, in order to bring her at once into Sunday-school. Miss Powell thought differently. She believed Nelly's shame at her own ignorance would be the best spur in driving her to learn. She saw, too, that Nelly's feelings were very strong, and easily excited, and she was afraid that the laughter she might be exposed to from the other children in the infant-room would be likely enough to disgust her and drive her away altogether.

"Well, Nelly, perhaps you are right," said she. "I rather think you are. In fact, when you do come, I want to have you either in my class or Miss Kirkland's; and you could not well be in either unless you knew how to read."

"Does Miss Kirkland have a class,—that lady that gave me the thread and shuttle?"

"That is Mrs. Kirkland. She has a class of little boys. The young lady with fair hair down in the shop is Miss Kirkland,—the one who gave you the braid to bring up to me."

"I like her," said Nelly. "She spoke real kind when the other lady looked at me so scornful. But I had rather be in your class than any one's. Oh, I will try real hard to learn," said she, earnestly, and then added, hopefully, but rather doubtfully, "Do you think I could ever earn money enough to buy a frock?"

"Oh, yes; if you are industrious, and learn to work quickly and neatly. Come; we will go now and buy your new book."

How happy Nelly felt when the new, clean spelling-book, with its nice print and pretty pictures, was put into her hands,—all her own, the first she had ever owned, except a few toy-books her granny had given her! Miss Powell asked the clerk for a sheet of wrapping-paper, and covered the book neatly for Nelly, who could hardly believe in her own happiness.

"We will stop here a minute," said Miss Powell, pausing at a druggist's, where Nelly had often lingered to admire the pretty bottles in the window.

"What can I give you to-day, Miss Powell?" asked the clerk behind the counter.

"A piece of pumice-stone, and the cheapest nail-brush and tooth-brush you have which are good for any thing," answered Miss Powell; "and please charge them to my charity-fund."

Nelly had no idea that these things were meant for her, till Miss Powell put them into her hand and showed her how to use them. "Now, Nelly, you will have no excuse for not keeping your work clean and your breath sweet. Remember, one of the first things necessary towards 'being somebody,' as you say, is personal neatness and cleanliness. Don't you perceive that if your hair had been smoothly brushed and your dress clean and whole, your clothes might have been ever so cheap and poor, but that lady would never have thought of calling you a ragamuffin?"

"I thought about that, myself," said Nelly.

"And I must tell you another thing, Nelly. Mrs. Kirkland will not want to have you come about the store or work for her unless you take pains to look nice. You can easily mend the frock you have on, and ask your grandmother to wash and iron it, and mend that rent in your hat; and then you will look quite respectable."

"I don't know very much about mending," said Nelly, doubtfully.

"But you can do your best, and you can learn to do better," said Miss Powell. "Believe me, Nelly, it is much more important to learn to put in a patch nicely than it is to make the prettiest tatting that ever was seen; and it is not half so hard. And there is one more thing I want to say, Nelly. I shall not give you these things out and out, but upon the condition that out of every dollar you earn, you shall put by two cents, to be given to some person who is worse off than you are."

"Well, I will," said Nelly, much interested. "It is nice to have something to give away. I guess," she added, after some consideration, "I guess I had better mend my frock before I begin my tatting; because when I once begin I shall not want to stop."

"That is a very good plan. Well, good-by, my dear child. And Nelly, just one last word more. You must not forget to ask God's blessing on your work. Ask him to help you, and above all to make you a good girl."

These last words furnished Nelly with food for thought all the way home. She had for some days been trying very hard to be a good girl, but she did not succeed very well. She was conscious that she had been naughty that very morning in speaking disrespectfully and unkindly to her grandmother; and it came upon her heart like a weight when she remembered that she had seen tears in the old woman's eyes. She had been sorry directly, but she had been too proud and in too much of a hurry to say so, and she ran away without even saying good-by. She had meant never to be naughty again, after she had heard those beautiful chapters about heaven; but her resolutions had not seemed to do her much good. But if God would help her for the asking, it seemed to make her way much plainer.

"I will ask him just as soon as I go to bed," she thought; and then it occurred to her to inquire why she should not ask now. It would be a good many hours to bedtime, and she might do many naughty things before then. Nelly was not quite sure that it was right for her to speak to God without kneeling down and shutting her eyes, as she did when she said the prayer Kitty Brown taught her; but she resolved at last to risk it. Her prayer was very short. "Please make me a good girl. I want to be good and go to heaven; but I don't seem to know how. Please help me to be good and do my work nicely and be kind to granny. Please help me to learn to read quick, so I can go to Sunday-school. Amen."

Nelly went on with a lighter heart after her prayer, and found her granny busy over the dinner, and apparently taking more than usual pains with her cookery.

"How nice the dinner smells!" said Nelly. "What are you boiling, granny?"

"Sure, Mrs. Powers gave me a piece of bacon, and I have cut some greens on the common. So you'll have bacon and greens for your dinner," returned Mrs. Ryan; "and that's more than you desarve, being so cross to your own granny, that brought ye up."

Nelly had been, thinking, all the way home, that she would tell granny she was sorry for her hasty words; but this reproach touched her ever ready pride, and she was about to make a hasty reply,—when something said to her, "And are you going to do wrong the very first minute after you have asked God to help you be good?" Nelly swallowed something like a hard lump which rose in her throat, and answered,—

"Well, granny, I am sorry I was so naughty, and I won't be so any more. You are a dear, good granny, and I love you ever so much!"

"Sure, if you are sorry, there is no more to be said," said the kind-hearted old woman. "We mustn't expect gray heads on young shoulders. What have you got there?"

Nelly displayed all her treasures, her new book, her toilet-articles (the like of which granny had never beheld before), and, finally, her shuttle and thread, describing with great animation the nice lady and the pretty shop, and explaining all her grand prospects. The old woman listened attentively, and looked at Nelly's work with great interest.

"Sure, dear, I could have showed you that," said she. "I learned it when I was a girl; but we called it knitting, then. I used to know a many pretty patterns."

"Oh, granny, can't you remember some of them?" cried Nelly.

"May-be so, if I tried; but now here is your dinner, dear, and after that we will see."

"But I said I would mend my frock first. Miss Powell said I must look neat and nice when I came to the store; and I don't want to be called a ragamuffin again."

"And who was it called you a ragamuffin, dear?"

"A lady who was buying something in the shop; and, granny, you know I am ragged," said Nelly, surveying her frock. "There is no use in denying it."

"And what business had they to cast it up to you, and you the grand-daughter of Lord Glengall?" said Mrs. Ryan, who was apt now and then to forget the exact degree of her relationship to his lordship. "It is fine times, indeed, for them tradesfolk to be looking down upon you! Not that I'm saying a word against them ladies in the shop that taught ye the work," she added, hastily. "Of course, things is different here and in the old country. But nobody shall call you a ragamuffin again, dear!" And the old woman went on muttering and murmuring in Irish, as she was apt to do when excited. Nelly did not often pay much attention to these soliloquies, and, having finished her dinner and washed up the few dishes, she set herself seriously about mending her frock, while Mrs. Ryan, still murmuring to herself, made herself ready to go out.

"Where are you going, granny?" asked Nelly.

"Never you mind, dear. You will see when I come home. Just you sit upon the door-step and have an eye to the cow while I am away."

Nelly accordingly took her sewing to the door-step, where she worked away sedulously, now and then lifting her eyes to glance at the cow, and giving a peculiar cry which Crummie well understood as a hint that she must not stray too far.

"There!" said Nelly, at last, holding up her work, and looking at it. "That a'n't so bad, after all. I wonder if I can't wash it?" But glancing at the stove and perceiving that the fire was out, Nelly gave up the last idea, and, after a sedulous use of her new nail-brush and pumice-stone, she took her tatting and sat down to work at it, delighted to find how much faster she could work than before. She had made almost a quarter of a yard, when a shadow coming before her caused her to look up, and she uttered a joyful exclamation as she saw Mr. Lambert with a little carpet-bag in his hand.

"Well, Nelly, and so you are at work at your tatting still?" he said, kindly. "You are a persevering little girl."

"I don't like to give up when once I begin," said Nelly.

"That is right. No, I can't come in now. I have brought you a little present, Nelly—a frock and some other things of my daughter's,—which I think you will find useful. See: do you think you can wear this?"

Nelly's face grew crimson with delight at the sight of the pretty plaid frock hardly worn at all, she thought, the nice gray sack, and red striped stockings,—she had always wanted some red stockings,—and the good, substantial, though partly worn-out boots.

"And now, Nelly, I want you to do me a favour," said Mr. Lambert. "I want you to take your work and sit down just as you were when I first saw you by the side of the road,—there! that is just it. Now sit still a few minutes." Mr. Lambert took his book and pencil, and drew rapidly for about twenty minutes.

"There, that will do," said he. "Now tell me, which is your cow?"

"I will call her, if you want to see her," said Nelly, much puzzled with these strange proceedings. "She always comes when I call her."

Nelly called Crummie, accordingly, who came obediently and stood quite still, munching the bits of bread Nelly gave her; while Mr. Lambert again drew in his book for a little while.

"I think I have it now," said he, at last, shutting up his book and putting it in his pocket, without offering to show Nelly the drawing he had made. "Many thanks, Nelly. I hope you will go regularly to Sunday-school and learn all you can. Will you?"

"Yes, sir."

Mr. Lambert walked away, and Nelly stood watching him for some minutes before it flashed across her mind that she had promised to go to Sunday-school.

"But I did not say when I would go," said she to herself. "I do mean to go as soon as I learn to read a little."

Nelly did not feel quite satisfied with this evasion, but she dismissed the thought for the present, and began trying on her new clothes. They were all too large; but Nelly did not mind that. It was a good fault, she said; and great was the satisfaction with which she looked at herself in the foot-square of mirror which was all she possessed.

"Now, if I only had a nice hat; but may-be I'll get that too. I guess I could buy one for twelve shillings or a dollar, and I can soon earn that. Won't granny be pleased? And here she comes now. Why, granny, have you been buying out all the stores this afternoon?"

Mrs. Ryan had her arms full of parcels, which she flung down on the bed with,—

"There, my Lady Eleanor! just see there what. I've brought you;" and then, observing Nelly's new clothes, "And pray where did you get all these fine things?"

Nelly related the events of the afternoon, and was disappointed and a good deal puzzled to see that her grandmother did not seem at all pleased.

"Sure, he might have brought them before, if he'd been coming at all! Much good they are now, to be sure!"

"Why, granny, what is the matter?" asked Nelly. "Don't you think it was kind of the gentleman? I thought you would be glad to see me look so nice."

"And so you do look nice, dear; and I am glad, only—But never mind. We won't borrow trouble. Why don't you open your parcel and see what I have got for you?"

Nelly uttered exclamations of delight over the contents of the bundles. There were two nice new frocks, a gayly-striped petticoat,—even a hoop-skirt. Another parcel held a pretty straw hat, trimmed with beads and blue ribbons, a nice white handkerchief, and a pair of thread gloves.

"Why, granny, all these for me!" exclaimed Nelly. "It never rains but it pours. Just think of me with three new frocks at once, and a hat, and all!"

"Mind you take care of them, for they cost a deal of money," said Mrs. Ryan. "Ay, a deal of money," she repeated, nodding her head. "But I won't have you called a ragamuffin again by these upstarts, that never saw a rale lady or lord in their lives."

"Oh, the name didn't hurt me any," said Nelly, who could now afford to laugh at her morning's trouble. "Words break no bones, you know you say, granny."

"Ay, dear; but they break worse, sometimes. They break hearts; and hearts can't be mended as easy as bones. Remember that, dear," said the old woman, significantly. "And now put all the fine things away, and get the supper ready; for I'm tired and weary."

Nelly obeyed, wondering more and more at her grandmother's unusual mood. She tried to divert her from it by asking her questions about Ireland and Kilmane Park. But, for once, the artifice failed of its effect. Granny gave short though not unkind answers, and continued to talk to herself in Irish, till at last Nelly grew scared.

"Don't you feel well, granny? Shall I go for the doctor?"

"No, dear," said Mrs. Ryan, rousing herself with an effort. "There's nothing much the matter, but a trouble of my own that ye can't help. And it's glad and pleased I am to see you so neat and handy, and to know that the child of my heart has found friends to help her when—But never mind that. Was it the park you was asking about?"

"Yes, granny; about the fountains you told me of, and the lake where the young lord was drowned."

Mrs. Ryan plunged at once into the legend of the lake; and when Nelly went out with her milk, she left her granny almost as cheerful as ever.

She went first, as usual, to Mrs. Vandake's.

"What book have you there?" asked Mrs. Vandake.

"My spelling-book, ma'am. I bought it myself," said Nelly, with justifiable pride.

"But you need not have done that, child. Don't you know I promised you one? I found it for you only this afternoon."

"I didn't like to wait, and you didn't like it, either, when I told you of it," said Nelly.

"But you might have known. However, I don't blame you. I did put you off, I know. Well, never mind; you won't want the spelling-book, but you may have the Reader all the same."

Nelly thanked her, thinking that there was no end of presents that day. After she had finished all her other errands, she went to Mrs. Powers's; and it was with no small satisfaction to pupil and teacher that she took her first reading-lesson of Kitty Brown.