'The child,' he said 'will permit me to go home with her; you, sir, may follow at a respectful distance.—Come, dear, give me your hand.'
When the board school officer did come to the cottage he was received with politeness, but—had his answer; and the gentleman who had come to Lotty's assistance was very much delighted to find that she had received the best of education. Indeed, he gave proof of this by engaging her as a day-teacher of music and French to his own children.
That crooked sixpence had surely brought luck in its wake.
CHAPTER XXVII.
'GAZE ON THOSE SUMMER WOODS.'
IT was a happy day for Lotty on which Chops returned to the cottage abode of his parents after so many weary wanderings. Not so romantic, certainly, would his life be now as it had been in wayside camp or caravan—it might even be a somewhat prosaic one; for, instead of being a gipsy any more, Chops was about to become a citizen and end probably in becoming a man of substance. Well, he had been a boy of substance, at all events; and although it was nearly a month since Lotty had seen him, he did not appear to have lost flesh to any appreciable extent. But to find his little companion so happy, and so much at home at his mother's cottage, and even on a fair way to earn a good livelihood, made honest Chops beam with joy.
It was not long after this that the lad's father apprenticed him to a draper to get a thorough insight into the business. And the shop was not a long way off, so that Chops came home regularly every night, and when he had a half-day's holiday he spent it with Lotty. The girl was not ashamed, but glad to go out with him, despite the cheeky London boys, who were by no means dilatory in drawing attention to the fact that her companion had to a trifling extent exceeded the limits of the ordinarily obese. The crispness of their remarks, however, did not annoy Chops at all.
'W'ich I'm goin' to go in a buster,' he told Lotty in confidence, 'with athletics, an' work hoff this too solid flesh; an' so, has I grows, I'll put hon manly muscle, an' I think, Miss Lotty, 'ow hall my dreams an' ambitions is bound to come true.'
Then a happy thought occurred to Lotty: she would take Chops under her educational wing and try to teach him to talk grammatically, to put his 'h's' in their right places, and to read and write correctly. And this, she felt a certainty in her own mind, would be to help him up a step or two in the ladder of life. And Chops was delighted when Lotty bought his first books for him out of her own earnings. But she was well rewarded, for the lad became a hard student in his spare time, and a fairly apt pupil.
. . . . . . .
It will be seen further on how Augustus Robb got hold of still another letter written to Aggie by her brother, who was now away touring in his great caravan through Ireland. But Robb did find it, and took good care that the father should see it. And the epistle made an impression on the mind of the proud owner of Manby Hall which was very far indeed from being favourable to his son's future prospects in life. Robb pretended he had not read nor seen this letter, but this is highly improbable.