“Ah!” he said bitterly, as they reached the door in the alley, “fine feathers make fine birds, and perhaps Jenny Blossom likes such birds to watch for her, and follow her about.”
“Can I help it, Harry?” said Jenny softly, as she laid one little work-scarred hand upon his. “I have no one to protect me,” and before he could speak again she had hurried up-stairs.
There must have been something more than the ordinary interpretation of those words, so effectually to drive away Harry Smith’s anger. Perhaps it arose from the way in which they were said. At all events John Wilson must have imagined that a fresh plague had broken out in the court, for he came near no more; and at one regular hour every evening Harry was to be seen accompanying the dainty little maiden to the warehouse, turning himself into a regular pack-horse with parcels, and all to the great hindrance of the emigrating scheme.
And so weeks—months passed, and then something more must have been said; for one day Harry Smith was seen busily carrying Jenny’s flower-pots from her lodging to his own home, which could have been from no other reason than that Jenny had at last consented to tend them there, and send brightness to the honest young fellow’s home. And so it passed, for from that time Jenny Blossom’s name faded out of the chronicles of Gutter-alley. Year after year, though, when tiny little blue-eyed children were born to Harry in the cold wintry season, there was a fancy of his which may be recorded. It was only the fancy of a rough, honest worker—a soldier in the fight for life; but all the same, the idea had its tinge of poetry. The idea was this—to say that the tiny blossoms that came to find this world in its wintry garment of purity were like Violets in the Snow.
Story Five: Nil Des.
Story 5--Chapter I.
John Richards’ Housekeeper.
“Git along, do, with such clat.”
“But, Keziah—dear—only listen to me! Here’s winter coming on fast, and what could be a better time for getting it over? What’s cold got to do with it, Keziah, when there’s a warm and manly heart beating away for you at such a rate as to keep you warm and itself too? Say yes, Keziah!”