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

by B. L. Farjeon

'But that is not what I was going to say. I was going to say this. Listen to me, dearest: If it were not for you, I shouldn't go; if it were not for you, I should stay at home, and be content. For I love home, I love the dear old land, I love mother and father, and the old black cat, and the little house I was born in. And it's because of you that I am tearing myself from these dear things. I am going to earn money enough to make a home for you and me; to make you more quickly all my own, all my own! How my heart will yearn for you, dear, when I am over the seas! But it will not be for long; I will work and save, and come back soon, and then, my darling, then!----' The tenderness of his tone, and the tenderness there was in the silence that followed, were a fitter and more expressive conclusion to the sentence than words could have made. 'I shall say when I am in the ship, I am here for Bessie's sake. When I am among strangers, I shall think of you, and think, if I endure any hardship, that I endure it for my darling--and that will soften it, and make it sweet; it will, my dear! I shall not be able to sleep very much, Bess, and that will give me all the more hours to work--for you, my darling, for you! See here, heart's treasure; here is the purse you worked for me, round my neck. It shall never leave me--it rests upon my heart. The pretty little beads! How I love them! I shall kiss every piece of gold I put in it, and shall think I am kissing you, as I do now, dear, dearest, best! I shall live in the future. The time will soon pass, and as the ship comes back, with me in it, and with my Bessie's purse filled with chairs and tables and pots and pans, I shall see my little girl waiting for me, thinking of me, longing to have me in her arms as I long to have her in mine. And then, when I do come, and you start up from your chair as I open the door!----Think of that moment, Bess--think of it!'

'O, George, George, you make me happy!'

And in such tender words they passed the next hour together, until George tore himself away to look after some tools, which he was to take with him to coin chairs and tables and pots and pans with. But if he did not wish his tools to rust, it behoved him not to bring them too close to his eyes, for his eyelashes were dewy with tears.

Now, late as it was in the day for such common folk as ours, Tottie had not yet made her appearance downstairs. The first in the morning to get up in the house was old Ben Sparrow, and while he was taking down his shutters, and sweeping his shop and setting it in order, Bessie rose and dressed, and prepared the breakfast. Then, when breakfast was nearly ready, Bessie would go upstairs to dress and wash Tottie; but on this particular morning, on going to the little girl's bedside, Tottie cried and sobbed and shammed headache, and as Tottie was not usually a lie-abed, Bessie thought it would do the child good to let her rest. And besides being as cunning as the rest of her sex, Bessie was the more inclined to humour Tottie's whim, because she knew that George would be sure to drop in early; and if Tottie were out of the way, she and her lover could have the parlour all to themselves. George being gone, however, there was no longer any reason for Tottie keeping her bed; so Bessie washed and dressed the child, and was surprised, when taking her hand to lead her downstairs, to see Tottie shrink back and sob and cry that she didn't want to go.

'Come, be a good child, Tottie,' said Bessuel 'grandfather's downstairs, and he wants to play with you.'

At this Tottie sobbed and sobbed, and shook her head vehemently. She knew very well that it was impossible for Ben Sparrow to be downstairs, for had she not eaten him in the night, every bone of him? She was morally convinced that there was not a bit of him left. Grandfather play with her! He would never play with her any more; she had done for him! Her fears were so great that she fancied she could feel him stirring inside of her. But although she was rebellious, she was weak, and so, shutting her eyes tight, she went into the parlour with Bessie. Then she ran tremblingly into a corner, and stood with her face to the wall, and her pinafore over her head; and there Bessie, having more pressing cares upon her just then, left her. When Tottie, therefore, heard the old man's voice calling to her, she sobbed, 'No, I never! No, I never!' and was ready to sink through the floor in her fright; and when the old man lifted her in his arms to kiss her, it was a long time before she could muster sufficient courage to open her eyes and feel his face and his arms and his legs, to satisfy herself that he was really real. And even after that, as if she could not believe the evidence of her senses, she crept towards him at intervals, and touched him and pinched his legs, to make assurance doubly sure.

Ben Sparrow found it hard work to be playful to-day, and Tottie had most of her time to herself. If the anxiety depicted on his face were any criterion, his special cares and sorrows must have been of an overwhelming nature. In the afternoon young Mr. Million came in, spruce and dandified, and handsome as usual. The young gentleman was not an unfrequent visitor at the little grocer's shop, and would often pop in and chat for an hour with Ben Sparrow; he would sit down in the back parlour in the most affable manner, and chat and laugh as if they were equals. Bessie was not at home when he came this afternoon, and he seemed a little disappointed; but he stopped and chatted for all that, and when he went away, the old grocer brightened, and his face looked as if a load were lifted from his heart. His brighter mood met with no response from Bessie, when she came in shortly afterwards. Some new trouble seemed to have come on her since the morning--some new grief to which she hardly dared give expression. She had been stabbed by a few presumably chance and careless words spoken by a neighbour--need it be told that this neighbour was a woman? No weapon can be keener than a woman's tongue, when she chooses to use it to stab. The woman who had uttered the words was young--a year older than Bessie--and it was known at one time that she was setting her cap at Bessie's sweetheart. But she had met with no encouragement from George, who, being wrapt heart and soul in Bessie, had no eyes for other women. George often nodded a laughing assent to a favourite saying of his mother's, that 'One woman was enough for any man; more than enough, sometimes,' Mrs. Naldret would occasionally add. The stab which Bessie received shall be given in the few words that conveyed it.

'So George goes away to-morrow morning,' was the woman's remark to Bessie as she was hurrying home with heavy heart.

'Yes,' sighed Bessie; 'to-morrow morning.'

'Ah,' said the woman, 'he'll be nicely cut up at leaving. I daresay he'd give a good deal, if he could take some one with him.'