“Very much.”
She again curled herself up on the rug at his feet, and began: “‘Once, many years ago, there lived in a small seaside town a very lovely girl, who had for guardian an old grandmother. They had a little money,—enough to keep them in comfort,—and their lives would have been quite happy, but for one thing that vexed their tender hearts. In the cottage next them lived an unhappy child, a miserable, ill-used boy, whose mother, being poor and among foreigners, took occasion to vent her spite thereat on the head of her offspring.
“‘He was a provoking boy, bad-tempered, wilful, and ungovernable, so every one said but the young girl and her foolish old grandmother. They spoiled him, gave him kind words whenever he was permitted to cross their threshold, mended his torn garments, and exercised their ingenuity in conveying food to him when he was locked up in starving solitude. When the boy got older, matters improved. His Spanish mother found it was easier to knock about a helpless child than a strong, sturdy lad; so she sent him to school to a fair, apple-cheeked young schoolmaster, as good and wholesome to look at as the boy was ill-favoured and unwholesome.
“‘He had only one fault, this young schoolmaster. He was madly jealous of any one who came between him and the object of his affections,—the lovely young girl with whom he was, or fancied he was, in love. For a long time he had vexed himself over the knowledge that her sisterly interest in the young friendless lad, her neighbour, was so much affection stolen from him. So one can imagine that at the start he was not prejudiced in favour of his new pupil. The boy’s school life was a stormy one. Worried, held up to derision, and punished on the slightest provocation, he at last ignobly determined that he would do without an education, and ran away to sea.
“‘For years he never visited his old home. Then one day he came back. The cottages were both empty; his mother and the old grandmother were dead, and the young girl had married the schoolmaster and had gone to live in London. A strong desire to see the person who had once been kind to him led him to follow her. After some trouble, he found her in an untidy, uncomfortable lodging-house, ill and alone.
“‘She was very much changed. Her face was thin and worn, her beauty had all slipped away from her. Still, she said she was well and perfectly happy. Her husband was kind to her, so very kind, she repeated over and over again, but he could not be with her all the time. Now that he was in London there were sights to be seen, and acquaintances to be made, and she did not expect him to sit by her pillow. Still, though her husband was so attentive, the sailor said that he would not leave London for a time, and would take a room near her in case there might be something for him to do. And one day the dying woman took his hand, and made him promise solemnly that he would fulfil a request she had to make.
“‘He gave her a blind assent, having perfect faith in her. Then she took her tiny child from the cradle beside her, and, putting it in his arms, told him to go at once and hide it in some safe, far-away place, and never, never let its father know where it was. He was a good husband, she said, a good, true husband,—she would never allow any one to say a word against him. But he knew nothing about children; and though she was sure he would make a good father, she would not for the world have him left sole guardian of her little girl.
“‘The young sailor got a release from a part of his promise. He could not take the child himself, he did not wish to leave London just then; but he would send it by safe hands to a place where he could find it again. So the child went and the sailor remained, and bore the abuse of the affectionate father, who, enraged at the loss of his little daughter, accused the sailor of having stolen it. Still, wicked and depraved, the young man refused to admit the charge, and even when arrested and brought to the bar of justice managed to clear himself; so cleverly had he covered up the traces of his guilt.
“‘Well, time went by, and when the news of the baby’s safe arrival in a distant part reached the mother, she too set out on an unknown journey. The sailor saw her laid in the grave; then, he, amidst the maledictions of the man he had robbed, took his departure.
“‘His little protégée was where he could see her occasionally in his voyages to and fro over the earth’s surface. She was quite happy, for the people who had taken her treated her as if she were their own child. This was by command of the wicked sailor, who wished the little girl to have a perfect childhood. But at last his villainy cropped out. He stole the child again—a woman now—away from her loving, adopted parents, put her in his ship, and sailed away with her as his father did with his mother, and’”—she concluded, dropping the paper and her stilted tone of narration at the same time—“‘he was actually foolish enough to imagine she was the sort of person who would stay where she was put.’”