But Poppet made a small discovery one day. She found her little money-box empty under her own bed, with a bit of dirty paper stuck in the slit. “I’ll pay you back,” it said in Bunty’s straggling hand; “you said you’d lend me the thirteen shillings. I have to go, Poppet; it’s no good stopping here—no one believes you. Don’t forget what you promised. You can have my tortoise for your own. It’s in the old bucket under the house. Don’t forget to feed it; it likes bits of meat as well as bread. I’d [77] ]like to say good-bye, but you always cry and make a fuss, and I have to go. You’re the only one worth anything anywhere. Oh, and don’t forget to change its water often,—well water has more insects in than tap.”
“Don’t forget what you promised,” repeated Nell, as she read the almost undecipherable epistle in her turn. “What did you promise, Poppet?”
“That I would believe him,” the little girl said, with a sweet, steadfast look in her eyes.
[78]
]CHAPTER VII.
A LITTLE MAID-ERRANT.
“There’s nothing on earth half so holy
As the innocent heart of a child.”
It was in the midst of morning lessons soon after at the Beltham Grammar School that an odd thing happened.
It was very hot; not a breath of wind came in at the open doors and windows—nothing but the blazing sunlight that lay in hot patches on the floor, and slowly baked blackboards and slates and desks. It was a very long room, this “Great Hall,” as they called it; half-a-dozen classes were at work in it, with as many masters; and at the end, on a little, raised platform, sat Mr. Burnham in front of his desk. He was looking through the Euclid exercises of the fourth form, and his brow kept criss-crossing with lines of annoyance at any noise,—the hot, slumbrous air was quite enough to bear, without [79] ]the occasional down-crashing of a pile of slates or the upsetting of a form.
Then came the loud note of the locust—the whir-r-r, and pen-inimitable sound of its wings, inside the room, not out. Who had dared to bring one of the prohibited creatures into school, after the endless penalties that had been imposed for the offence? Mr. Burnham scored a red line through one of the exercises and stood up in his place, a heavy frown on his face.
And at the same moment a very small shadow fell just inside the entrance door at the far end of the room, and a very small knock sounded there. Nobody said “Come in,” though a hundred and fifty pairs of eyes went in the direction with the swiftness natural to gratitude for any break in the monotony of morning school. Then there stepped over the threshold a little, slight girl,—a little girl with a very short, holland frock, a great sun-hat, and no gloves; a little girl with a white, small face, great frightened eyes shining strangely, and soft lips very tightly closed. Up the long, long room she went, both little hands held tightly together in front of her. No one could tell from the way she walked how her poor little knees were shaking and her poor little heart was beating.