"Come, speak up, young woman."
The next minute, Stanley's head was pushed in, and he said sharply: "Come, be brisk there, and show the gentlemen round the show."
"I am," gasped Lizzie; but she was obliged to seize hold of the rail behind which the figures were ranged, to support herself for a minute or two. But the faintness went off, and Lizzie went on with her description until this party of visitors had gazed their fill at the glass-eyed, wooden-faced monstrosities, and by the time they had departed, another party had gathered and were waiting to be admitted, and when they had filed in, Lizzie began again, and once more detailed how Lady Jane Grey tried to kill Queen Mary, and "Bloody Mary" ordered the child brought before Solomon to be divided.
She could see a grim smile on the faces of one or two visitors as they listened to these wonderful details, but she did not dare alter her statements in the least, for fear of the horsewhipping that would certainly follow upon such a breach of discipline, and so she repeated the words at last in the same mechanical tone Tottie had adopted, and scarcely knew what she was saying before the weary day came to an end.
Round and round she went, repeating the words to various parties of visitors; for they were new-comers to this race meeting, and the wax-work show was a novelty that everybody wanted to see. So business was brisk all day, and far into the night, to Mrs. Stanley's great satisfaction and her victim's intolerable disgust.
Her head ached, her back ached, her feet ached, her throat was sore and parched from bawling incessantly amid the fumes of paraffin, and when at last, the hour of release came, and she could take off her tawdry finery and lie down on the sack of straw that was thrown in at the back door as soon as the last visitor had departed, she could only stretch out her arms and sob out:
"Oh, mother! I wish I had died before I ran away from you."
Mrs. Stanley was well pleased with her day's work and the store of pence that had been collected at the entrance, and she set open the back door that Lizzie might have some share in the feasting and merry-making that always went on among themselves after a good day's business.
But Lizzie had no heart for merry-making, and the coarse jests and riotous laughter would rather have disgusted than pleased her, even if she had been well. Neither did she care for the bountiful supper of tripe and onions that was handed up to her. She felt too sick and sore to eat; she only longed for rest, and to be able to go back to her mother and the situation she had so rashly left.
But the next day, the same dreary round had to be gone through, and the next, and the next, for a sort of fair was held after the races were over, and then they journeyed on again, farther and farther from the spot to which the runaway was longing to return.