ADAPTED FROM CHARLES DICKENS.
BY MRS. ZADEL B. GUSTAFSON.—(Concluded.)
There stood on the door-step a rather overgrown boy, with a great many buttons on his clothes, and a very kind, pleasant face; though not at all handsome.
"Come in, sir," said the little dressmaker. "And who may you be?"
"My name's Sloppy, miss."
"DON'T OPEN YOUR MOUTH SO WIDE; SOME DAY IT'LL CATCH SO."
"Ought to be Buttons," laughed Jenny. But when Master Sloppy threw back his head and laughed, she exclaimed, "Goodness me! don't open your mouth so wide; if you do, some day it'll catch so, and never come shut again."
The big boy shut his mouth, and looked around the room for all the world as if it had been described to him, and he was trying to verify the description.
"How do you like it?" asked Jenny.
"Pretty well, miss."
"And what do you think of me?"
This question confused Master Sloppy. He pulled at his coat buttons, and looked at her foolishly.
"Don't be afraid," said she. "Speak out. You think I'm queer, now, don't you?" She shook her head at him, and the broken-toothed comb with which she had pushed back her hair fell out, so that the shining locks came down and made a golden bower all around the tiny little figure.
"Oh," cried Sloppy, "what a lot of it! and what a color!"
"What did you come for?" asked Jenny, in her gentle voice, after a short silence.
"I heard you dressed dolls, miss," said Sloppy, giving a very odd look at the door.
"Did you, indeed? Do you want a doll dressed?"
"You don't live here all alone, do you, miss?" said Sloppy, with another look at the door.
"No; I live here with my fairy godmother."
"With—with—who did you say, miss?"
"Well, of course you don't understand," Jenny explained. "With my second father, or with my first, really." She shook her head and sighed. "If you'd known a poor child I used to have, you'd have understood me; but as it is, you don't, and you can't."
"You must have been taught a long time, miss, before you could do such nice work, and so pretty," Sloppy said, looking at the gay doll and the quick fingers.
"Never was taught a stitch. Just cobbled and cobbled until I found out how. Did badly at first, but better now."
"And here have I been ever so long a-learning of my trade—cabinet-making," said the boy. "I'll tell you what, miss; I should like to make you something."
"Much obliged," said the little creature, with her sharp look, and her head on one side. "You're a new sort of customer. What would you like to make for me, now?"
Sloppy looked all around the room. "I could make you a handy set of nests to lay the dolls in, or I could make you a handy little set of drawers to keep your silks and threads in, miss, or I could turn you a pretty handle for that crutch. It belongs to him you call your godmother?"
"It belongs to me," said Jenny, blushing over her face and neck; "I'm lame."
Sloppy blushed too, for he was a kind boy in spite of his big mouth and his lots of buttons.
"I'm glad it's yours, miss," said he, very quickly, "because I'd rather make it pretty for you than for any one else. Please may I look at it?"
"You'd better see me use it," said Jenny, getting up. "See, this is the way—hoppety-kickety-peg-peg-peg! Not graceful, is it?"
"Why, it seems to me that you hardly want it at all," said Sloppy, very kindly.
The little dressmaker sat down again and gave the crutch to him, thanking him with that soft voice and that better look that gave her a kind of beauty all her own. He measured the handle on his sleeve, and then gently laid the crutch down.
"It would be a real pleasure to me, miss, to fix it. I've heard that you can sing beautiful, and a song would pay me any time a deal better'n money."
"You're a very kind young man, and I accept your offer," said the little creature, with a smile. "I suppose he won't mind," she added, thoughtfully; and then, tossing her head, "if he does mind, why, he may, that's all."
"Meaning him you call your godmother, miss?" Sloppy asked.
"No, no—him, him, him," said Jenny, with an odd, amused look at Sloppy's wonder.
"Him, him, him," repeated Sloppy, staring.
"Yes, him who is coming to court and marry me."
"Oh, him," said Sloppy. "When is he coming, miss?"
"What a question! How should I know?" cried the little dressmaker.
"Where is he coming from, miss?"
"Why, goodness gracious, boy, how can I tell that either? He's coming from somewhere, I suppose, and he's coming some day. That's all I know about him."
At this Master Sloppy threw back his head and laughed so heartily, and seemed so merry, that the dressmaker began to laugh too, and even Mr. Riah joined in.
"Now," said Jenny, when she had got her breath again, "you haven't told me yet what you've come to see me for.—Oh, godmother! what's that?"
"It's a bride, miss, a bride. And a wagon, a coach, a chariot, miss!" roared Sloppy, who sprang up and threw the door wide open.
There was a most unusual sound of wheels and voices, and in the same moment the little dressmaker, golden bower of hair and all, was caught up in the arms of Lizzie—Lizzie, in a wonderful silk dress, with shining pearls around her neck, and lace to drive a little dolls' dressmaker wild. Behind Lizzie stood a handsome gentleman, thin and pale yet, but with the happiest look Jenny had ever seen in a man's face in all her little watchful life.
"Come," said this gentleman to Lizzie—"come, Mrs. Wrayburn, let me take Miss Golden Hair, and you bring on the godmother."
Sloppy was already out and on the driver's seat. And almost as quickly as I have told it, the pretty coach and the span of dark gray horses—which behaved as if they had been told all about it—were flying away toward London.
In the coach were Mr. Riah, who hardly knew how he came to be there, and the little dressmaker, who sat between the handsome gentleman and Lizzie—her own dear, kind Lizzie; but, oh, how different and how much more beautiful! Jenny thought.
When they had been riding into the city for a little while, the horses stopped in front of a beautiful house, and Lizzie's "him" carried Jenny up the wide stairs, by tall stands of lovely flowers, to a little room. And oh, what a little room it was! The paper on the walls was a tea-rose color; there was a pretty moss-rose carpet, and a little inlaid working bench with little scissors, and a dainty basket with silks and ribbons and velvets pouring out of it, all fit for a dressmaker to the fairies; and a low chair, cushioned to be as soft as a bunch of clover; and a beautiful book of pretty patterns, in which was written: "For my darling Jenny Wren, from her Lizzie-Mizzie-Wizzie."
Such a change—so great and so delightful that any real fairy godmother might have been proud to have made it with her fairy wand—almost took away the little dolls' dressmaker's breath.
But while she sat in the soft low chair, and Lizzie told her how Mr. Wrayburn had been very ill, and how when he got better he had asked to keep his nurse always, and how she had said yes, if she might have her Jenny Wren, and how he had said he couldn't do without Jenny Wren either, the little dressmaker's eyes filled with tears, almost the first happy tears that had ever come into them.
She took Mr. Wrayburn's hand and kissed it, and wound some of her beautiful hair around it, and then twisted some of Lizzie's dark hair around that, and said, "It's a bargain."
Then Lizzie told her that Mr. Riah was going to live in the little house in Church Street, because he liked it best, and he was going to do some nice work for Mr. Wrayburn, and be well paid for it. "And we are going to take tea with him sometimes," said Lizzie, "and he is going to take tea with us very often, my dear, and Sloppy is going to make you the prettiest things, and go on your errands, Jenny love, and you are going to live with us, and be as happy as the day is long, till 'he' comes."
"Oh, he! He can stay away now," said Jenny, with the merriest little laugh. "If he couldn't come when a person was alone, and had trouble, and lots of work to do, he can stay away now as long as he likes."
"And serve him right, miss," said Sloppy, who stood in the doorway, and laughed as merrily as Jenny.
"And, Jenny dear," said Lizzie, after the little dolls' dressmaker had gone to bed under the pretty lace curtains, and both were looking through the window into the pleasant evening sky, "now you can see your long bright slanting rows of children?"
Jenny waited a moment. "Yes, but not here," said she, softly. "By-and-by, when I've gone up to be dead."