Princess Sarah, and Other Stories

by John Strange Winter

"Both!" returned Charles, in a tone which carried conviction with it.

Thus Tom had no further resource, when May vowed to ring the bell and stop the train if he touched her, but to sit down and bear his aches and his defeat in silence. But, oh, he was angry! To be beaten and beaten again by a girl! It was too humiliating, too lowering to bear. Yet poor Tom had to bear it--that was the worst of it. So they eventually got to Brighton in safety.

CHAPTER XI

AUNT GEORGE

It would be hard for me to tell of all the joys and pleasures which Brighton gave to the Stubbs family and to Sarah in particular. To the younger of the Stubbs children all was joy and delight, though they had been there several times before; to Miss Clark it was rest and peace, because she was not much troubled with Tom; and Flossie, too, was allowed to go about with him and Johnnie a great deal more freely than she ever was at home. May--always Miss Clark's favourite--spent much of her time beside her, though she went shopping sometimes with her mother, and also driving. But, on the whole, Mrs. Stubbs did not give up very much of her time just then to her children.

For Mr. Stubbs was taking his holiday, and Mr. Stubbs was troubled with a threatened fit of the gout, and do with the sound of the children's racket and bustle he simply could not. He was often threatened with the gout, though the threatenings seldom came to anything more than temper. So, whilst they were at Brighton, Mrs. Stubbs--who was as good a wife as she was a mother--devoted herself to him, and left the children to take care of themselves a good deal.

Their life was naturally quite a different one to what it was in town. They had a furnished house in which they slept and took their meals, but which at other times they did not much affect--they had early dinner there, and a high tea at seven o'clock, at which they all ate like ravenous wolves, Sarah amongst the number. This was a very happy, free-and-easy meal; for, though Mr. and Mrs. Stubbs joined in the early dinner, and called it lunch, they did not go in for the high tea but invariably went to the Grand Hotel and had dinner there.

Oh, what happy, happy days they were! There was the early run out on the Parade or the Sea Wall before breakfast; then the delicious seaside breakfast, with fresh whitings every morning. There was the daily dip in the sea, and the daily donkey ride or goat-chaise drive. There was the ever new and delightful shingle, on which they played and skipped, and dug and delved to their hearts' content. There were the niggers, and the blind man who sang to his own accompaniment on a sort of hand-organ, and wore a smart blue necktie, and a flower in his button-hole. There was a sweet little child, too, wearing a big sun-bonnet, whom they used to watch for every morning, who came with toddling three-year-old gravity with a penny for the niggers, to the infinite amusement of the bystanders.

"Here, black man."

"Thank you, my little Snowdrop," was the invariable reply of the nigger minstrel; and then the little wee "Snowdrop" would make a stately bow. The nigger would take off his hat with a bow to match it, and the little scene was over till the morrow.