"That's the fairy, I'm sure, Grant," whispered Blanche, eagerly. "Do just peep in and see."
The maid pushed open the door and walked a few steps forward. On the floor stood a paraffine lamp which shed a dim light throughout the room, showing a heap of matting in the corner, where a poor, emaciated child lay. Gleaming through the half darkness, Blanche could distinguish a pale, sharp, unchildlike face, that rested on a thin shrivelled hand. A wretched mud-colored rag seemed to be her sole garment; and, at her side, there stood a pair of big boots, or what served for them, but they seemed almost detached pieces of leather now; besides being of a considerably larger size than the wearer would require. Lying on a table, in another corner of the room, was the gauzy fairy gear, at which Blanche glanced sadly, thinking it contrasted strangely with the wretched rags for which it had been exchanged.
On hearing the sound of footsteps, the child started up, and looked wildly round, as she exclaimed, "O mother! you'll not beat me this time! I'm so bad—it's my leg! Tim said he never saw nothing like the fall I got! Oh, my! it hurts awful!" and the child began to writhe in pain.
"It is not your mother—poor thing! But I daresay your mother will be here before long," said the maid, in a compassionate tone, as she stooped down to look at the child.
In a moment, Blanche was kneeling beside the heap of matting, her pretty blue opera cloak falling on the grimy floor as she took the child's little black fingers in her hands, saying, eagerly, "O poor, poor fairy!—little girl, I mean," she added, for she could not yet divest herself of the idea of the gauzy wings and woven spangles,—"what a dreadful fall you had. I'm afraid you must be very much hurt!"
The child drew her hand away, and looked sharply at Blanche. Presently she nodded, saying, "I know; you're the pretty little girl what looked so pleased at the pantomime. We noticed you—Tim and me. Tim's the boy what hangs the lamps, you know. He's gone to fetch mother; but she aren't a-comin' yet. Drinkin' again, most likely—she's always at it."
Just then a loud-voiced, boisterous woman came staggering into the room.
"Well, young 'un, so you've been and gone and done it again! Didn't I tell you to mind your feet, you little idiot!" and the woman, stooping down, seized the child and shook her roughly.
"Oh, mother, mother, don't! I couldn't help it, noways—my head got so giddy. Oh, I'm so bad!" the weak voice wailed out; and presently the little face got more pale and pinched than before, and the poor fairy fainted away.
"You've killed her, you have—you cruel, cruel woman! How dare you speak so?" said Blanche, quivering with indignation, as she sprang to her feet from beside the matting where she had been kneeling, and almost sprang at the half-tipsy woman.