A Peep Behind the Scenes

by Mrs. O. F. Walton

On the road to the town they passed many other caravans, all bound on the same errand, coming like swallows to a warmer clime.

Rosalie's father went first to an open space or stable-yard, where the caravans were stowed away for the winter. Here he left Rosalie for some time, whilst he went to look for lodgings in the town. Then he and the men removed from the caravans the things which they would need, and carried them to their new quarters. When all was arranged, Augustus told the child to follow him, and led the way through the town.

How Rosalie wondered to what kind of a place she was going! They went down several streets, wound in and out of different squares and courts, and the child had to run every now and then to keep up with her father's long strides. At last they came to a winding street full of tall, gloomy houses, before one of which her father stopped and knocked at the door. Some ragged children, without shoes or stockings, were sitting on the steps, and moved off as Rosalie and her father came up.

The door was opened by a girl about fifteen years old, with a miserable, careworn face, and dressed in an untidy, torn frock, which had lost all its hooks, and was fastened with large white pins.

'Where's your mistress?' said Augustus Joyce.

The girl led the way to the back of the house, and opened the door of a dismal parlour, smelling strongly of tobacco.

Rosalie gazed round her at the dirty paper on the walls, and the greasy chair-covers and the ragged carpet, and was not favourably impressed with her new abode. There were some vulgar prints in equally vulgar frames hanging on the walls; a bunch of paper flowers, a strange mixture of pink and red, blue and green and orange, was standing on the table, and several penny numbers and low periodicals were lying on the chairs, as if some one had just been reading them.

Then the door opened, and the mistress of the house entered. She was an actress, Rosalie felt sure of that the first moment she saw her; she was dressed in a faded, greasy silk dress which swept up the dust of the floor as she walked in, and she greeted her new lodgers with an overpowering bow.

She took Rosalie upstairs, past several landings, where doors opened and people peered out to catch a glimpse of the new lodger, up to a little attic in the roof, which was to be Rosalie's sleeping-place. It was full of boxes and lumber, which the lady of the house had stowed there to be out of the way; but in one corner the boxes were pushed on one side, and a little bed was put up for the child to sleep on, and a basin was set on one of the boxes for her to wash in. Rosalie's own box was already there; her father had brought it up for her before she arrived, and she was pleased to find that it was still uncorded. There were treasures in that box which no one in that house must see!

The lady of the house told Rosalie that in a few minutes her supper would be ready, and that she must make haste and come downstairs. So the child hastily took off her hat and jacket, and went down the numerous stairs to a room in the front of the house, where tea was provided for those lodgers who boarded with the lady of the house.