LANCHE'S temporary maid was a very silent woman, and was therefore regarded by her little mistress as an extremely dull, uninteresting attendant. She longed for Ellis's return to her post; forgetting all the passages-at-arms which had taken place between them during her reign. And especially since the evening at the pantomime, she wanted to have somebody to talk to about the poor fairy. Grant merely replied to her remarks in the briefest possible way; and Blanche decided that she was hard-hearted as well as uninteresting, for, if she were not, she could not fail to express her sympathy for the poor little girl who seemed in such pain, and had such a dreadful mother. The remembrance of the little pinched face quite haunted her. She went over the scene again and again in her mind; and wondered where her home was, and what would become of her. Miss Prosser assured her that she would certainly be taken to the hospital, and very well cared for; but still Blanche was not satisfied. Whenever she went out to walk, she looked eagerly, among the faces in the crowd, for the face of the terrible mother, and she resolved that however dreadful she looked, she would go to her and inquire about her little girl.
She sometimes wondered, too, whether the poor fairy knew anything about that unseen Friend whom, in these last days, she had been learning to know and love. It would be such a comfort to speak to Him when her mother was so wicked and so cruel, Blanche thought, and she did not forget to ask the Lord Jesus Christ to make the poor, bruised fairy well again, and to soften her mother's hard heart.
One day, in particular, she had been thinking a great deal about the fairy; and, in the evening, after she was comfortably tucked into bed, her maid still lingered with the candle in her hand, as if she had something that she wanted to say.
"I've been to see a little girl, to-day, who has not such a comfortable bed as you have, Miss Clifford, though her poor little bones need it sore enough."
"Ah! have you, Grant?" replied Blanche, sitting up in bed, in a listening attitude. "Do tell me about her. Who is she, and how did you come to know her? Is she as poor and pinched-looking as the fairy, do you think?"
"She is the fairy, Miss Blanche—the poor little thing we saw at the pantomime."
"O Grant, you don't mean to say so! Have you really found her out? I'm so very, very glad. It's what I've been longing to do. Where does she live, and was she very much hurt? You must take me to see her; indeed you must, Grant. Do tell me all about it before you go."
The maid then narrated how, the day before, she chanced to meet the terrible mother, in company with another woman, somewhat less tipsy than she, and able to give Grant the information she required concerning the poor child, who, from her account, was still very ill and very destitute. Grant went immediately, in the mother's absence, and saw the little girl in her wretched home. Her leg appeared to have been very badly hurt; the doctor, whom a kind neighbor had once brought to see her, said that she would always be lame, and the child's chief regret seemed to be that she would never be able to act at the pantomime any more.
Blanche listened eagerly to all the information Grant had to give, and before she went to sleep that night was plotting and planning how she could accomplish a visit to the fairy's home.
Next day, when Miss Prosser announced that she would dine out in the evening, and had made arrangements for Grant to sit in the schoolroom with her pupil, Blanche looked upon the circumstance as the most delightful opportunity for carrying out her plan. Her governess very rarely made engagements for the evening, or left her pupil to her own devices; so it seemed to Blanche the rarest piece of good luck that she should be going out to-night. She knew very well that Miss Prosser would not give her sanction to a visit to the wretched little girl; and though Blanche felt doubtful whether she was doing right in thus taking advantage of her governess' absence, she was so bent upon seeing the fairy again, that she tried only to look at her own side of the question.