"It's just that that beats me," said the fisherman; "she's as lively as you please in the boat, but as soon as she gets out, down she pops her head, and begins to pipe her eye."
"Well, there, you go and look after Perkins and the fish, and I'll see to her," said Dame Peters, a little impatiently; for she had some potatoes cooking for her husband's supper, and she knew they needed attention. After looking to these, she turned to Tiny, who had dried her tears by this time, and sat watching the old woman. "D'ye like to see pictures, deary?" she asked; and at the same time she opened the top drawer of an old-fashioned chest of drawers, and brought out a print, which she laid on the table, and lifted Tiny, chair and all, close up to look at it.
Pictures were not to be seen in every cottage a few years ago, as they may be now. The Band of Hope Review and British Workman had not been heard of in Fellness at the time of which we write, and so Dame Peters was very choice of her picture, although she knew nothing about the reading at the back of it.
Tiny brightened up wonderfully when her eyes fell upon this treasure; but after looking at it for some minutes, while Dame Peters turned out the potatoes, she ventured to lift it up and look at the other side, and she exclaimed joyfully: "Oh, it's a book! There's reading on it!"
"What, what!" exclaimed the old woman, turning from the fireplace to see what had happened. "What is it, child?"
"See, see, there's reading—G O D! What does that spell?" asked Tiny, looking up in the old woman's face, her finger still resting on the word she had picked out.
"Bless the child, how should I know? S'pose it is some sort of reading, as you say; but I never learned a letter in my life."
"And I've a'most forgot," said Tiny, sadly; and then her finger roved over the printed page, and she found that she could remember most of the letters now she saw them again; but how to put them together was the difficulty. She had forgotten how to do this entirely. G O D spelt a word familiar enough to her at one time, but which of all the words she used now those letters were intended to signify, she could not remember. Again and again her finger returned to the well-remembered letters, but beyond this her memory failed her; and she sat, with puckered brow and steadfast eyes, still looking at the printed page instead of the picture, when Coomber came back.
"Oh, daddy, daddy, look here!" exclaimed Tiny; "here's a book with reading!"
"She's just sat and looked at them letters, as she calls 'em, ever since you've been gone," said Dame Peters, in a half-offended tone; for her picture was not valued as much as it ought to be, she thought.