Nothing was more simple. I wrapped up the little box neatly in a quarter-sheet of foolscap, sealed it with the office wax, and directed it in my best hand to “Miss Hetty Blakeford. From one who is very grateful.”
I felt very conscious and excited as I finished and laid it in the bottom of the desk, just where the presents were always placed for me, and to my great delight, when I looked again there was a plate of tart which the poor child had saved from her own dinner, and the packet was gone.
Chapter Five.
Mr Blakeford Suffers, and I Catch the Echo.
My life at Mr Blakeford’s knew but little change. It was one regular monotonous occupation—copy, copy, copy, from morning till night; and but for stolen bits of reading I believe I should have gone melancholy mad. I had no companions of my own age, no older friends to whom I could confide my troubles or ask for advice. Mr Blakeford was always stern and repellent; Mrs Blakeford, on the rare occasions when I encountered her, ill-used, and ready to say something about my being an extra expense. Only at rare intervals did I see little Hetty, and then it would be in the street, when I had been sent to the post, to fetch stamps, or on some such errand. Then I had a smile and a pleasant look to think about till our next encounter.
A year glided by in this fashion, during which time, in spite of his constant complaints, I must have grown very useful to Mr Blakeford, for my handwriting was clear and firm, and I copied a great many documents in the course of the month.
He was as brutal to me as ever, and never lost an opportunity of abusing me for my being an incumbrance, or saying something which sent me miserable to my room.
My tender point, and he knew it well enough, was an allusion to my father’s debt to him; and afterwards, when I went up wretched and low-spirited to bed, I used to make a vow that some day or another I would save enough money to pay him all my father owed, and so free his memory from what the lawyer always told me was a disgrace.