CHAPTER I.
Rain, rain—nothing but rain on this Christmas Eve, in the New South Wales metropolis. Although it was in the heat of summer the wind from the coast blew keenly through the almost deserted streets, and caused the fine mist-like wet to penetrate the stoutest overcoat. It was such weather that no one who had a roof over his head would care to be out in. But there was one wearily toiling from street to street, beneath the protection of the verandahs—a delicate-looking girl. With one hand she was trying to wrap her scanty rags round her wasted body, and in the other she held a half-dozen boxes of wax matches. Her face was worn, and pinched, and dirty, but it was a very beautiful, patient, little face; her hair, too, would have been a bright golden in natural hue, save that it was shaggy and dirty also. It was to little purpose that she offered her matches [[229]]to the passers-by, who were few and far between on this wet evening—they were all too anxious to get home out of the rain. From the brightly lighted streets the little wanderer crossed Hyde Park, and wended her way slowly up Oxford Street, and from thence to the left, along the Bay Road, where dwell the wealthy and the great. Why she had left the shops and all the busy part of the city for the wide, bleak road, dotted with high, massive houses standing out dark and cold in the falling rain, the poor child could not tell. Impelled by some strange fascination, she had quitted her usual haunts, and taken the opposite direction leading from her wretched home. Although it was getting late, and past the time when she should have returned, she had no thought of going home. Her memory was full of faint, indistinct thoughts, whether dreams or faraway realities, who shall say? She wondered why she had rambled so far from the city; but she also felt she must go on. Her ragged dress was soaked with rain and the keen wind was cruel and cutting, yet the poor little thing did not feel the rain or the wind; on the contrary, she felt as if she was on fire, save now and then there would pass a cold feeling all over her, which caused a shivering fit. The match girl was well aware that she would be [[230]]beaten when she returned to her wretched dwelling, yet, strange to say, she felt perfectly happy as she wandered farther away from it.
Half way up the Bay Road there came over the little waif a feeling of dizziness, accompanied by a feeling of thirst, and again that burning sensation which again changed into a cold shiver, as she stood there. Close at hand there was a friendly porch belonging to a grand mansion, so the child crept into it, out of the wind and rain, and crouched down. No sooner had she done so than all her light-heartedness appeared to leave her, and she burst into tears. It was very strange that directly the little match vendor began to cry she heard a confusion of sounds around her—wild, mocking laughter, and shouts, and stamping of feet, and strange lights were dancing before her eyes. The stones on which she was lying seemed to be heaving and tossing, and she felt very frightened just for a moment, and then she fell fast asleep.
These sounds still went on in her slumber, but they gradually got softer and softer, and sweeter and more subdued, until they changed into the most lovely music. And the little outcast thought she was standing in the midst of a very beautiful garden, and somehow it appeared to her that she [[231]]had known it all a long time ago. The rain and wind and the murky clouds had passed away, and it was glorious, sunny day; the flowers were in full bloom. Voices of birds and insects filled the balmy air, and gay coloured butterflies flitted here and there. While she was standing, wondering that all these strange things should seem so familiar to her, a handsome boy, with golden curls, approached, and exclaimed,—
“Oh, dear sister Nellie, come and play. Why did you go away and stay away so long?”
The dreamer looked up; she appeared to know the happy face quite well, and she assured him in a voice, that was not like her old thin, weak voice, but soft and clear, which seemed like a voice that had belonged to her a long, long time ago,—
“Indeed, I don’t know where I have been, Frank; nor why I went away. Is it a long time since?” she asked timidly.
“Such a long time, sister.”
“I am here at last, Frank; and I will never go away again. Come, let us play in the garden.” And then she took his hand, and they walked on together amongst the flowers, while the thousand voices round about gave gladsome welcome. All the old miserable life of the beggar child seemed to fade quickly away here, leaving nothing save the [[232]]feeling that she had always been accustomed to the grand objects by which she found herself surrounded.
“Suppose we have a game of hide and seek?” suggested Frank.