With this dust Miss Palmer was always waging war. From morning till night—week in and week out—she fought perseveringly with the ever-gathering dust, and tried to make her house as prim and as neat as her tidy soul longed to see it. But just as Audrey's pinafores would get black, so the old house would get dusty, and the two together brought many a line of care into Miss Palmer's forehead.
Audrey had lived with her aunt since she was a fortnight old. Her father was a baker in a town two hundred miles away. She had never seen him, and he had never seen her since her aunt had carried her off, a tiny, sickly baby, nearly eight years ago. Audrey's mother had died soon after she was born, and her father had sent a piteous letter to his sister Cordelia, telling her he did not know what would become of him and of his nine motherless children, now Alice was gone.
On receipt of that letter, Miss Palmer had at once put up her shop-shutters, packed a small carpetbag, locked up her old house, and had set off for the town, two hundred miles away, where her brother lived. She had only remained one night, for her business could not be neglected; but she had brought the baby back with her, having adopted it as her own.
A curious little thing Audrey looked, as Miss Palmer rolled her in a warm shawl before starting on her homeward journey, for even then she had a quantity of hair, which made her little face look, if possible, smaller and more fragile. But Miss Palmer, although she was an old maid, had had some experience with babies, having at one time been nurse in a respectable family. So the little one had every care and attention bestowed upon her, and had grown up a healthy, hearty child, always untidy, and never clean for half an hour together, but yet with cheeks like roses, and as plump and strong as even Miss Palmer's heart could wish.
She was very fond of the little girl, although she did not often show it. And though she sometimes rebuked her and said, "Now, Audrey!" in a voice which made her tremble, she was not unkind to her, and did not mean to be harsh.
"It was all for Audrey's good," she said to herself.
Thus Audrey, in spite of her pinafores, did not lead at all an unhappy life. She went to a private school in the next street, where an old woman tried to keep order amongst thirty or forty children, and, at such times as she succeeded in making her voice heard, to teach them reading, writing, and a few sums.
Audrey was a quick child, and learnt well all that it was possible to learn in such a place. She could read easily and distinctly, and would have been praised for her writing, had she not covered both herself and her copybook with blots. But the sums were her delight, and she was fast coming to the end of all the arithmetic which Miss Tapper was able to impart.
But there was one thing which Audrey had never been taught, either at school or at home, and that was the power of the love of Jesus. Her aunt made her say a prayer night and morning, but she never talked to her of the dear Lord who died instead of her, and who longed for her to be His loving and obedient child. If Audrey was good she was praised, if she was naughty she was blamed; but no one taught her who alone could make her good, or could teach her not to be naughty.
She was like a little ship beaten about by the waves, driven first one way and then another by the storm of temper on the wind of wilfulness. She had not yet learnt whose hand must be on the helm if she was to sail onward, and to reach the harbour in safety.