The Children's Pilgrimage

by L. T. Meade

"Jesus," she said, "Lord Jesus, I'm dreadful, bitter sorry as I never took no time to get ready to die. Jesus, can you love even me?"

There was no answer in words, but a new and satisfied look came into the poor, hungry eyes; a moment later, and the sick and dying woman had dropped asleep.

CHAPTER IV.

TOBY.

Quite early in that same long morning, before little Maurice had even opened his sleepy eyes, the woman whom Mrs. D'Albert called Aunt Lydia arrived. She was a large, stout woman with a face made very red and rough from constant exposure to the weather. She did not live in London, but worked as housekeeper on a farm down in Kent. This woman was not the least like Mrs. D'Albert, who was pale, and rather refined in her expression. Aunt Lydia had never been married, and her life seemed to have hardened her, for not only was her face rough and coarse in texture, but her voice, and also, it is to be regretted, her mind appeared to partake of the same quality. She came noisily into the quiet room where Cecile had been tending her stepmother; she spoke in a loud tone, and appeared quite unconcerned at the very manifest danger of the sister she had come to see; she also instantly took the management of everything, and ordered Cecile out of the room.

"There is no use in having children like that about," she said in a tone of great contempt; and although her stepmother looked after her longingly, Cecile was obliged to leave the room and go to comfort and pet Maurice.

The poor little girl's own heart was very heavy; she dreaded this harsh new voice and face that had come into her life. It did not matter very greatly for herself, Cecile thought, but Maurice—Maurice was very tender, very young, very unused to unkindness. Was it possible that Aunt Lydia would be unkind to little Maurice? How he would look at her with wonder in his big brown eyes, bigger and browner than English eyes are wont to be, and try hard to understand what it all meant, what the new tone and the new words could possibly signify; for Mrs. D'Albert, though she never professed to love the children, had always been just to them, she had never given them harsh treatment or rude words. It is true Cecile's heart, which was very big, had hungered for more than her stepmother had ever offered; but Maurice had felt no want, he had Cecile to love him, Toby to pet him; and Mrs. D'Albert always gave him the warmest corner by the hearth, the nicest bits to eat, the best of everything her poor and struggling home afforded. Maurice was rather a spoiled little boy; even Cecile, much as she loved him, felt that he was rather spoiled; all the harder now would be the changed life.

But Cecile had something else just at present to make her anxious and unhappy. She was a shrewd and clever child; she had not been tossed about the world for nothing, and she could read character with tolerable accuracy. Without putting her thoughts into regular words, she yet had read in that hard new face a grasping love of power, an eager greed for gold, and an unscrupulous nature which would not hesitate to possess itself of what it could. Cecile trembled as she felt that little bag of gold lying near her heart—suppose, oh! suppose it got into Aunt Lydia's hands. Cecile felt that if this happened, if in this way she was unfaithful to the vow she had made, she should die.

"There are somethings as 'ud break any heart," she said to herself, "and not to find Lovedy when I promised faithful, faithful to Lovedy's mother as I would find her; why, that 'ud break my heart. Father said once, when people had broken hearts they died, so I 'ud die."