After a hasty breakfast of dry bread and weak coffee, that had been allowed to get nearly cold, Lizzie took her place beside Lady Jane Grey, ready for the first group of visitors.
This fair lasted nearly the whole week, and as the weather was fine, and the wax-work show fairly successful, Mrs. Stanley's temper somewhat improved, and Lizzie began to hope she might escape the threatened beating after all. That such a beating as alone would satisfy Mrs. Stanley would kill her now she felt sure, for she was no longer the rosy healthy girl she was when she left home. She had begun to grow thin and careworn, and though the walnut-juice dye had changed the colour of her skin so that she could no longer look white, she began to look yellow and sickly, instead of the "nut-brown maid" Mrs. Stanley had designed she should be. This was especially noticeable when this week's work was over; for the confinement in the sickening atmosphere, and the fatigue of walking continually round the close confined space within the van, told upon the girl's strength so severely, that the last night of the fair she could scarcely do her treadmill task, and when at last the door was closed, and the steam whistle screeched its final blast, the poor girl sank down upon the floor more dead than alive.
"Here now! Just have a drop o' this, Lizzie," said a voice that sounded a long way off to the girl lying half-fainting on the floor of the van. She could hear the same voice repeat the words in the tones of entreaty and command, but she had no power to rouse herself or even open her eyes. At last her head was raised, and some fiery liquid poured down her throat that nearly choked her, and then she knew it was the hateful gin she had been made to swallow.
"No, no," she gasped, pushing the glass away from her when Tottie would again have put it to her lips.
"Look here, Liz, it ain't no good holding out agin it," said the girl persuasively. "I know what this wax-work van is. It just pumps the life out of ye, and the only thing to keep you going is a little drop o' gin. Mother always gave me a drop when I was here," she added.
But Lizzie still shook her head. "I promised Mother I never would touch it," she whispered faintly.
"Yes; but you can't keep a promise like that now," said Tottie. "Mother knows you can't keep on without it, and she says you must take it."
But Lizzie still shook her head. "I couldn't," she said. "I've been a wicked girl to my poor mother, but I'll just hold on to this; because it's the last and the only thing I can do for her."
"You're a fool then," said Tottie roughly; "and you'll just have to take your chances with Mother."
At that moment the van door was pushed open again, and Mrs. Stanley thrust her head in.