CHAPTER II.
A SONG AND A STORY.
Yes, Granny was quite right. It was difficult not to spoil that little beggar. Everyone helped to do so; everyone, that is to say, but one person. That one person was Briggs, Chris's dignified and severe nurse. The whole household concurred in petting and spoiling him in every possible way. Briggs alone maintained her course of justice, inflexible and unbending. Her yoke was not one under which the little beggar willingly bowed his head. He was not accustomed to any yoke, and Briggs' was not at all to his taste.
In consequence of this state of affairs, nursery rows were by no means infrequent; nor was it very long before I witnessed one. It was but a few days after I had arrived, and I was sitting one afternoon in the library reading the Morning Post to Granny, who was busy with some work she was doing for the poor.
It was a quiet and peaceful state of affairs which we were both enjoying. Suddenly, however, we were interrupted by a tap at the door, and the entrance of Briggs, flushed, heated, and slightly panting.
"If you please, mum," she began, a little breathlessly, and placing her hand on her side as if to still the beating of her heart, "I wish to know if Master Chris is to be allowed to speak to me as he likes?"
"Certainly not, certainly not," Granny replied, raising herself straight in her arm-chair, and trying to assume the severity of manner she felt was suitable to the occasion. "What has he been saying?"
"It was just this, mum," Briggs started, with the air of resolving to give a full, true, and particular account; "it was just this. We were down in the village, and I stepped into the post-office to buy a few reels of black cotton, which it so happens I have run out of. Likewise, I wanted to buy some blue sewing-silk, which you may remember, mum, you asked me to keep in mind next time I happened to be that way."
"Yes, I remember, Briggs. And Master Chris was naughty?" Granny said, gently trying to bring her to the point.