This explanation was received in ominous silence.
CHAPTER VII.
EPHRAIM TAKES HOME THE BUNDLE.
The silence was broken by Madam Dalrymple’s dispatching Tipkins to pay the waiting hackman. But the additional fifty cents was not forthcoming. In its stead a dime was given Sophy and she was, also, dispatched with a crispness that forbade her accompanying Jessica upstairs, in search of a new frock, and that sent “her about her business” with the reminder that she was to trouble that house no more.
“I will have the matter of the accident investigated and proper restitution made. You can give Tipkins your address, Sophy Nestor, and need not wait for Jessica to come downstairs. Tipkins, show the small person out.”
Sophy stared but did not disobey, even though her soul longed for one more glimpse of the lovely girl who had crossed her pathway, for a moment, so to speak, and had vanished within the gloom of that forbidding mansion. She was an impudent street child, in ordinary, ready to “sass” anybody who interfered with her and all the more “touchy” because of her deformity and the curiosity it aroused. But she dared not sauce this wonderful old lady, who looked to her like some of the fashionably draped wax figures in modistes’ windows and whose voice was so icily quiet and stern.
She followed Tipkins’ wake with a meekness hitherto unknown, but a meekness that was external only.
“Huh! She owns the inside of this house, she does, but she don’t own the whole street, so there. And I’ll take my stand right out here in the Square, and here I’ll sell my flowers—or bust! Then I’ll see Jessica and if she can’t give it to me to-day, she’ll give me that frock some other day. I hope it won’t be like that riding one she had on, all tight and draggley, but—Goody! Them ten centses ’ll buy a real lot of daffies offen the market folks, when market’s done, to-morrow. I won’t ride in no street car, I won’t, but I’ll be right here in this Square early to-morrow morning, and Jessie and me can talk through that iron fence, same’s if we was close together. Them lions is only iron, too, and I’m not a bit scared of ’em.”
These reflections passed through the hunchback’s mind as she received the dime from Tipkins and had the door of the mansion closed in her face. Then she seated herself on a bench in the park till she remembered that in leaving the hack she had left the bundle of fresh work in it, which she was taking home to Granny. At that memory she sprang up dismayed and hurried homeward, fearing many things but most of all that she would have to go without food for many meals to come because of her forgetfulness. Granny wouldn’t punish her. She rarely did by word or blow; but Sophy’s worst punishment would be the fact that the bundle of goods was lost and that Granny would have to make it good. Poor Granny! So old and so discouraged! Yet so much nicer in every way, the loyal grandchild thought, than that rich old lady in the mansion she had left.
“Why, Cousin Margaret! Where has Sophy gone?” asked Jessica, hurrying back to the room where she had left her visitor, with her own prettiest frock on her arm; even that beloved one of white with scarlet trimmings which had been made for the happy Navidad.