“Oh, that twenty shillings!” cried Sylvia. “What riches it seems! The first week I got it I really felt that I should never, never be able to come to the end of it. I quite trembled when I was in father’s presence. I dreaded that he might see the money lying in my pocket. It seemed impossible that he, who loves money so much, would not notice it; but he did not, and now I am almost accustomed to it. Oh Jasper, you have saved my life!”
“It is well to have lived for some good purpose,” said Jasper in a guarded tone. She looked at the young girl, and a quick sigh came to her lips.
“Do you know,” she said abruptly, “that I mean to do more than feed you and warm you?”
“But what more could you do?”
“Why, clothe you, love—clothe you.”
“No, Jasper; you must not.”
“But I must and will,” said Jasper. “I have smuggled in all my belongings, and the dear old gentleman does not know a single bit about it. Bless you! notwithstanding that Pilot of his, and the way he himself sneaks about and watches—notwithstanding all these things, I, Amelia Jasper, am a match for him. Yes, my dear, my belongings are in this house, and one of the trunks contains little Evelyn’s clothes—the clothes she is not allowed to wear. I mean to alter them, and add to them, and rearrange them, and make them fit for you, my bonny girl.”
“It is a temptation,” said Sylvia; “but, Jasper dear, I dare not allow you to do it. If I were to appear in anything but the very plainest clothes father would discover there was something up; he would get into a state of terror, and my life would not be worth living. When mother was alive she sometimes tried to dress me as I ought to be dressed, and I remember now a terrible scene and mother’s tears. There was an occasion when mother gave me a little crimson velvet frock, and I ran into the dining-room to father. I was quite small then, and the frock suited me, and mother was, oh, so proud! But half an hour later I was in my room, drowned in tears, and ordered to bed immediately, and the frock had been torn off my back by father himself.”
“The man is a maniac,” said Jasper. “Don’t let us talk of him. You can dress fine when you are with me. I mean to have a gay time; I don’t mean to let the grass grow under my feet. What do you say to my smuggling in little Eve some day and letting her have a right jolly time with us two in this old kitchen?”
“But father will certainly, certainly discover it.”