"Yer a rare 'un," repeated Jenny. She was small and squat, with a broad, freckled face, and light blue, saucer eyes. She looked up at the handsome girl by her side with the most sincere admiration.
"Lor! you have the courage," she said. "I'll be proud to go a-hawking with you."
Jenny's most commonplace appearance—her homely words—had a soothing effect on Bet.
"I'll go with you presently. Jenny," she answered. "But now may I go to your room, and may I stay alone there—for—for—say an hour?"
Jenny's beaming face fell. In her rough, untutored heart she had already conceived an affection for Bet. She would have dearly liked to sit in her very dirty attic bedroom, and gossip with her. That would have been nearly as good as walking through the streets of Warrington in company with so distinguished a companion. To walk through the streets, the envied of all, with Bet by her side would have been a crowning triumph for the poor little hawker, Jenny; but to give her up her room,—not to see her at all for a whole hour,—was a far less agreeable matter.
"Oh, I'll do it," she said. "You're welcome to the room. It ain't for me to make no objections."
She spoke summarily, and with some bitterness of spirit, but Bet was far too much absorbed in her own meditations to notice her.
When Jenny finally closed the door of her apartment, and unwillingly sauntered downstairs, Bet drew Will's letter from its hiding-place. She tore it open, and her feverish bright eyes devoured the few lines it contained. These were the words with which Will bade his sweetheart good-bye:
"Dear Bet,—Isaac Dent will take you my farewell. I am free, and I means to find a berth in the first ship as leaves the docks as 'ull take me on board. Dear Bet—I was innercent as the babe unborn—but it was Dent as cleared me. He spoke as a man, dear Bet, and I was proud to think as we was pals once on board The Albion ship when it sailed over the dancing waves. He's not a feller to let a comrade suffer, is Dent. I got your letter. You was right, Bet—I couldn't a-bear prison,—it was killing me by inches. I'm wasted now almost to a shadder. Dent tells me as you'll soon be wed, and that never may I call you wife o' mine. Bless you and him! I hasn't another word to say.—Will Scarlett."
Bet read this letter with some difficulty. She was, as she said, "a poor scholard," and she had to spread out the sheet of thin paper on Jenny's little bed, and laboriously spell through the words before she could arrive at any true glimpse of their meaning. It dawned upon her, after nearly an hour's severe study,—it dawned upon her just as Jenny's impatient tap came to the door, and her still more impatient voice exclaimed—