Blade-O'-Grass. Golden Grain. and Bread and Cheese and Kisses.

by B. L. Farjeon

I felt much relieved, and I rose the next morning thoroughly refreshed in mind and body. As early in the day as I could I walked towards Stoney-alley. On my way I met Mr. Merrywhistle. I asked him after Blade-o'-Grass. He shook his head gravely, and said,

'I was anxious to see you about her. It is with her just as you described. If she were left to herself she would do something desperate.'

'Has Tom Beadle come home?'

'No, and I have heard nothing of him. His presence might arouse her from the awful melancholy which has fast hold of her. It is dreadful to see. She has not spoken a word since you left, and it is with the greatest difficult that the woman I have employed has induced her to touch food; I am sure she has not eaten sufficient to keep life in her. She sits by her dead child, looking at it with a blank look in her eyes that almost freezes my blood to see. Sometimes she turns her head, and gazes into one particular corner of the room, with a gaze so fixed and steadfast that I have half expected--I am very nervous, my dear sir--to see something start out of the wall.'

'She told me on the night I met her by the Royal Exchange, that her baby lay all the day with her eyes wide open, staring at something she couldn't see. She laid great stress on the words. Perhaps she is trying to discover what it was the poor child was gazing at.'

'I have been thinking, my dear sir----'

'Yes,' I said, gently, for he had paused.

----'That if you were to speak to her, not simply as a friend who is interested in her bodily welfare, but as a minister----'

'I understand you. Such thought was in my own mind. I have not forgotten my duty, believe me.'

Upon entering the room where the dead and the living lay, I saw at a glance that Mr. Merrywhistle had indeed well discharged his duty. It was cleaner and tidier than I had yet seen it. One or two humble and necessary pieces of furniture had been added, and on the window there was a clean white muslin blind, edged with black ribbon. The dead child was on the bed, with a white sheet over it, and Blade-o'-Grass was lying on the ground, with her hand beneath the sheet embracing the body. I motioned the woman in attendance from the room; she went softly, and I closed the door behind me. As I stood with the handle in my hand, I heard a knock. I opened the door, and saw one of the lodgers--a tail, gaunt woman, with a decided moustache--with a yellow basin in her hand. She dropped a curtsey.