"We start at two, don't forget," said Mrs. Batten; "if to-morrow is as fine as to-day, the steamer is like to be crowded."
"The more the merrier," replied Ann Laver, the frown passing away from her brow, though its furrow always remained there: "a bit of a spree will brighten up my man; he had got so gloomy and moping-like when his illness was coming on, that I did not know what to make of him. He's fond of the river, I know. Good-day to you, Mrs. Batten. We'll be down at the wharf before two."
"Good-bye, little one," said the fishmonger's wife, as she quitted the shop, nodding and smiling at Annie, who, still perched on the counter, watched her with wistful eyes.
The sweet little face of the child was again very pale, with its habitual expression of patience and thought. Annie did not look like a light-hearted child. One might have fancied, as she sat with her large blue eyes fixed on the jars and pipes and papers in the window, that a good deal was passing through her infant mind, and that not of a cheerful description.
Though Mrs. Laver was fond of her only child, there was not much tenderness in her manner towards her. Mrs. Laver would have been indignant had any one charged her with cruelty, above all towards her daughter; but the harsh word, the hasty slap, the angry threat with which Annie was familiar, had much the same effect on the poor little girl that a blight has on the tender green leaves of the spring. Annie loved her mother, but scarcely as much as she feared her. The little one wanted more of the sunshine of smiles.
She had pined wearily for her father, and the two first nights after Martin Laver had gone to the hospital, his child had cried herself to sleep, "'Cause Daddy's away, and I can't have his bye-bye kiss," as she sobbed.
[CHAPTER II.]
Decision.
VERY quiet and very dull sat Annie on the counter, staring gravely at the window. She could not clamber down from the counter, and she dared neither play with anything on it, nor ask to be set down on the floor by her mother, who was putting things in order on a shelf, with her back towards the little girl. Suddenly Annie uttered a cry of delight, stretched out her hands, and in her eagerness to get down from her perch would have fallen off the counter, had she not been caught in the arms of her father, who fondly pressed her to his heart.
"Ah! Martin, is that you? I did not look for your coming till the evening," cried Mrs. Laver, turning round, and then giving her husband a welcome that was not unkindly, though she shewed none of the rapturous delight of the child, who clung to her father's neck, and buried her face on his shoulder.