Chops, senior, was really a quiet, inoffensive, and kind-hearted man, and his wife the daintiest morsel of a laundry-woman ever seen. Then Lotty's parlour, as her one room was called, was very tidy, neat, and clean. Quite a girl's room, in fact, and never lacked flowers in it. It was
Contrived a double debt to pay:
A bedroom bright at night it was,
A drawing-room by day.
Apart from the fact that Antony, Wallace, and Chops were not here, the little gipsy lass was happier than ever she had been in her life before. No tiresome rehearsals, no scoldings when doing her best, no worry nor care. This cottage gave her perfect rest.
But it must not be supposed that Lotty was going to lead an idle life. Nothing could have been farther from the child's thoughts. She was determined to pay her own way—to pave her own way, in fact, and to walk thereon. Mrs Oak had wanted Lotty to make her house her home as long as she pleased. But while thanking her and promising to come and see her often, she could not see her way to accept the kind offer. Her spirit of independence forbade. She determined to become a teacher of French and music.
That word 'determined' is a strong one; but London is a stony-hearted mother even to the very cleverest of girls. Lotty stuck her little card in the parlour window inviting pupils. But, alas! pupils did not come. Chops's little sister Mariar was the only one she had at present; and although the child was clever and smart, and Chops's parents pretended that the tuition she was receiving was quite enough to pay for Lotty's board, our Lotty was not of the same opinion.
But she was not the girl to let down her heart. So one evening she took her violin case and walked quietly out. Quite a mile townwards walked she, and then in a quiet but genteel street she began to play. For a time not a soul came near her. Oh! but souls came at last, and perhaps they were really souls, for Lotty was playing her best selected things, and it was charming to listen to her. She turned as red as an adjoining postbox when her first money was pressed into her hand, and was a little astonished to find it was a crooked sixpence with a hole in it. It came from a horny hand too. 'That'll change your luck, my love,' said the sturdy giver, and went trudging off before Lotty could thank him.
Whether the crooked sixpence had anything to do with it or not, her luck did change, and she played every night after this in the same neighbourhood, and at the end of a week she had earned five-and-twenty beautiful white shillings, to say nothing of the bent sixpence.
One day she ventured forth in the forenoon, and while playing her sweetest an unsavoury-looking man, in a bowler hat and wearing an unwholesome-looking coat, walked up to her. He had not even the good manners to wait until she had finished her piece, but tapped her somewhat rudely on the shoulder.
'Beg your pardon—er—but what is your age, my girl?'
'Thirteen next week,' said Lotty, wondering what he meant.