d.i.c.k coughed, blew his nose violently, filled out some water into his gla.s.s, quaffed the draught, cleared his throat, and then said gravely, "I'll tell you what to do, Win. This evening, after we have finished studying, I'll teach you a splendid double-shuffle which you will rehea.r.s.e to-morrow (with added grace, of course,) in front of the lovely Ada, and before all the cla.s.s--Mr. King included. My eye, what glorious fun!" and vulgar d.i.c.k looked across at his sister with beaming face.

"I dare hardly attempt that," she replied dolefully, "though I should dearly love doing so. But you see, d.i.c.k" (with energy), "Mrs. Elder detests me so much, and I have been caught in so many faults lately, that such an awful one as you propose would prove fatal. Your delightful plan must be abandoned, I am sorry to say."

"Well, perhaps after all you are right," replied the boy, changing his teasing tone into a serious one. "I daresay Miss Ada's rage would only increase in fury if she saw you performing a triumph-dance and rejoicing so extravagantly over her defeat. I remember a few years ago something of the same kind occurring in our school, and wasn't there a blow-up at the end! I was one of the little chaps then, but I managed to keep my eyes and ears open, and knew more about the whole affair than any one guessed."

"Tell me the story, d.i.c.k," interrupted Winnie, holding a spoonful of tart suspended betwixt her mouth and plate, and speaking eagerly; "do, there's a dear boy." But d.i.c.k shook his s.h.a.ggy head, and answered,--

"Not just now, Win. Our time is almost up. Finish your pudding, old girl, and let us away. By-the-by, don't expect me home till after five this afternoon;" and the boy's bright face clouded as he made this statement.

"Why not?" was the inquiry. "We were going to have such splendid fun together. Is there anything wrong?"

"Kept in," uttered in a growling tone. "Lessons as usual badly prepared--denounced for my stupidity, and ordered to remain after hours and work up. See what it is to have a dunce of a brother, Win," and d.i.c.k, curling his lip sneeringly, endeavoured to hide his wounded feelings by putting his hands in his pockets and trying to look perfectly indifferent.

Winnie, on her part, burst forth indignantly,--

"Not another word against yourself, Richard Blake. I won't listen."

Then coming to her brother's side and slipping two soft arms round his neck, she raised her eyes with the love-light shining so softly in them, and murmured tenderly, "Don't be downcast, dear old boy--all will come right some day; and I am just as stupid as you are."

"No, no," cried d.i.c.k quickly. "Indolence is your fault, Win, not stupidity. But I--I can't learn, and that's the simple truth. I've tried over and over again, but it's no good; and, of course,"

(doggedly) "no one believes that fact."

"I do," said the soft little voice. "But, d.i.c.k, people don't know you.

There you go," (with quaint gravity) "hiding that great, kind heart of yours, and showing only a rough exterior. Our father and mother never guess bow brave and good and true you are. They'll find all that out some day, however;" and Winnie looked into her brother's honest freckled face with all the affection of her loyal, little heart.

"You're a decided goose, Win," was all the answer vouchsafed to her cheering words, as the boy rose from his chair and prepared to leave the room; but the twinkle in his eye, and kind, firm pressure of his hand, when they parted at the street corner, spoke volumes to little Winnie, and sent her back to school with a happy heart.

She was very thoughtful all that afternoon, however, and so quiet that when school was over and the two girls stood on the steps of Mrs.

Elder's Select Establishment, Nellie inquired anxiously if her friend were ill.

"Ill!" repeated Winnie with a light laugh; "not I--only, I've been a-thinking," and a long-drawn sigh accompanied the words.

"What about?" asked her companion, descending the steps and viewing the little figure with the great, serious look on its face. "What a doleful expression, Winnie! You look as if you had, like Atlas, the whole world on your shoulders."

"Nellie," interrupted the child--for indeed she seemed little more than such--with the faintest quiver in her voice, "did you ever think, and think, and think, till your head seemed bursting, and all your thoughts got whirled together? No? Ah, well, I have; and somehow when I get into these moods everything becomes muddled, and I find myself all in a maze. Oh!" and Winnie spoke with pa.s.sionate vehemence, "often I would give I don't know how much to find some one who could understand and explain away my thoughts."

"Why not speak to your mother?" asked Nellie, rather surprised at this new phase in her friend's character; "surely she should be able to help you."

But the little girl shook her head despondingly. "No, no, Nellie; my stepmother is very kind and pretty, but I don't see much of her, and she would only laugh at me."

They were strolling leisurely along the street now, and the child's voice had a plaintive ring in it as she continued: "I was very ill about a year ago--so ill, Nellie, that I had to lie in bed day after day for a long time. I can't tell what was wrong with me, but I know the doctor used to look very grave when he saw me; and one day, after he had gone away, nurse went about my room crying softly to herself. I was too weak to care or think, and only wondered dreamily what she was crying for, till my stepmother entered, and I noticed that her eyes were red too. They imagined I was sleeping, I suppose, for nurse quite loudly asked, 'Is there no hope?' O Nellie! I shall never forget that moment, never so long as I live. I seemed to realize that I was dying--really, truly dying--and the thought was awful. What would happen to me after death? I could not, I dared not die. Springing with sudden strength from the bed, I tried to rush anywhere, screaming, 'Save me! don't let me die!' in the most awful agony. Then came a long blank. I never forgot that time, but I never spoke of it to any one.

Where was the use? I should only have been laughed at, and told to think about living, not dying."

There was something so pathetic in the way all this was told, there was such an amount of pathos in the quivering voice, that Nellie's heart ached and the tears rushed to her eyes.

"Winnie," she began gently, "I know what would do you all the good in the world--a talk with Aunt Judith. I am sure she would never laugh away your thoughts or refuse to listen, she is so good and kind; and when she speaks, one feels as if all one's wicked pa.s.sions were hushed away."

Winnie brightened visibly.

"Is that so?" she inquired; "then I should dearly like to see her.

Won't you invite me to spend some afternoon with you, Nellie, and allow me to see Aunt Judith and your cosy wee home?"

"I shall be only too pleased, Winnie," replied her companion. Then the two friends parted and went their respective roads--one to a fashionable home where gaiety reigned supreme and pleasure filled up every hour; the other to a lowly cottage-dwelling where G.o.d's holy name was hallowed, and the Christ-life showed itself clear and bright in Aunt Judith's daily walk.

CHAPTER VI.

WINNIE'S HOME.

That same evening Winnie and d.i.c.k were alone together in the oak parlour; a room sacred to themselves, where they ate, studied, played, and lived, as it were, a life quite apart from that of the other inmates of the family, who, occupied with business or domestic duties through the day, spent evening after evening in a round of gaiety and amus.e.m.e.nt. Brother and sister enjoyed little of the society of their elders during the week, but on Sat.u.r.days and Sabbaths they were usually expected to lunch with their parents--an honour which, I am sorry to say, neither appreciated; for somehow d.i.c.k seldom failed to commit a gross blunder or make some absurd speech at a critical moment, and Winnie, though a general favourite, refused to be happy when he was sternly upbraided for his fault.

The father, a man of wide culture and refinement, had no patience with his son's clumsy movements and slow brain, refusing to look under the surface and see the great loving heart which beat there with its wealth of warm true affection; while Mrs. Blake and the elder brothers and sisters regarded him in the light of a good-for-nothing or general scapegrace. The result was that d.i.c.k hid the many sterling qualities of his nature under a gruff, forbidding exterior, and only tender-hearted Winnie guessed how he winced and writhed under the mocking word or light laugh indulged in at his expense. Resenting them bitterly, she gathered up all the love of her pa.s.sionate little heart and showered it on him, idolizing this big brother of hers to such an extent that even his faults seemed gilded with a halo; and her affection being equally returned, both found their greatest happiness in each other's society.

Oh, what fun they had together in the oak parlour! Oh, the shouts of ringing laughter and the merry jest of words! Now and then d.i.c.k would bring home with him his special friend, Archie Trollope, and what a night would follow,--Winnie entering into their games with all the zest of her tomboy nature.

She never felt solitary or out of place in the company of these two boys; and they--why, they looked upon her as one of themselves: d.i.c.k describing her to his numerous companions as being a "tip-top" girl, and Archie singing her praises loudly to his own sisters who never knew what it was to join in a madcap frolic, and whose voices were strictly modulated to society pitch.

Sometimes, in the long winter evenings, the trio, tired with play, would lower the gas, and gathering round the large, blazing fire, tell ghost stories with such thrilling earnestness that often the ghastly phantoms seemed to merge almost into reality, and they found themselves starting at a falling cinder or the sound of a footstep in the pa.s.sage outside. On those occasions the window-blind was usually drawn up to the top, that the pale, glimmering moonlight might stream in; and as the soft silvery beams stole silently into the room and laid their tremulous light on the young forms and awestruck faces, the flames leaping and crackling joined in enhancing the effect of the story by throwing on the walls weird shadows of a moving spectral band.

But the winter days were yet to come, though the cold autumn winds and falling leaves heralded their sure approach; and this evening Winnie and d.i.c.k were engaged--not in wandering hand in hand into wonderland, but in the prosaic occupation of making toffy.

Winnie, enveloped in one of nurse's huge bib-ap.r.o.ns, stood at a little distance from the fire, busily studying a book of recipes; while d.i.c.k, his honest face burnt to the colour of a lobster, was bending over a saucepan and stirring manfully the tempting contents.

"Yes," said the young lady, laying aside the well-thumbed volume and taking a step forward, "the quant.i.ties are correct. I am sure this will be excellent toffy, but--d.i.c.k, you shocking boy! whatever are you doing? Licking the spoon, I declare. How very vulgar!" and Winnie opened her eyes in horrified amazement at her brother's lack of good-breeding.

"Well, you see, Win," replied the culprit meekly, "you so often make mistakes and put in some awful compound that I am obliged to guard against being poisoned. Having a sincere affection for life, and not being like Portia 'aweary of this great world,' I consider it my duty to take all due precautions, and therefore _pardonnez-moi_ for tasting the toffy."

The young cook drew her slight figure up and said with an air of offended dignity, "I flatter myself that I am quite capable of making excellent toffy, Richard Blake, and am well aware as to the proper ingredients."

"Doubtless," with a sweeping bow, "but 'accidents will happen in the best-regulated families;' and I remember how you subst.i.tuted salt for sugar the last time, and apparently never discovered your mistake till you had dosed me with some of the vile concoction. It was cracking stuff, I can a.s.sure you." Here d.i.c.k became thoroughly convulsed at the remembrance of that disastrous night, and laughed so heartily that Winnie fled to the rescue of her beloved toffy, and seized the spoon from her brother's swaying hand.

"What an object you look!" she said scornfully, stirring the clear brown liquid and inhaling its savoury odour with intense satisfaction.

"I don't see anything to laugh at;" and she began to hum the tune of an old nursery rhyme, as if utterly indifferent to both d.i.c.k and his laughter.

"Don't ape Madame Dignity, Win," gasped the awful boy in an almost strangled condition; "lofty airs are not becoming to such a little creature. You know perfectly well what a 'go' it was, and thought I was about to 'shuffle off this mortal coil.'" d.i.c.k had a weakness for Shakespeare. "Oh dear! when I reflect upon it all and remember the taste--" but here Winnie was obliged to give in and join in his merriment, for the boy's face of pretended disgust was too comical to resist.

"d.i.c.k, you are dreadful!" she said at length, the tears streaming down her cheeks and her voice still trembling with a lurking suspicion of laughter. "Will you never forget that eventful night!"

"Never," replied her brother with mock gravity; "the remembrance is printed indelibly on the records of my memory, and the taste remains for ever fresh to my palate. Let us change the conversation, Win; the subject is too much for my delicate const.i.tution."

"I am quite agreeable," quoth the young lady composedly, "and in that case allow your hands to be active and your tongue silent. I want the tin b.u.t.tered, and the bottle of vanilla essence brought from the pantry. Now, do hurry, for the toffy is almost ready."

d.i.c.k obeyed orders, and in a short time the candy was cooling outside on the window ledge, while brother and sister, comfortably settled in their respective chairs, were preparing to enjoy a "quiet read."

"This is a splendid book, d.i.c.k," said the little chatterbox, toying with the leaves of her dainty volume, and glancing at the tasteful engravings. "All the school-girls are raving about it, and saying how delightfully interesting the story is."

"What's the name and who's the author?" inquired d.i.c.k, too much engrossed in his own book of wonderful adventures to give much heed to his sister's words. "Quick, Win; I'm just killing a whale. Ah! now they've got him. Bravo!" and the boy shouted his appreciation of the stirring tale.