‘Look!’ cried Mrs. Sitwell, placing the photograph before Joyce with a triumphant movement. It was a heavy, unattractive face, such as hang by dozens in the frames of poor photographers, and are accepted by the subjects with that curious human humility which mingles so strangely with human vanity, and teaches us to be complacent about anything which is our own. The parson’s wife snatched it back and threw it among the little heap on the table. ‘Now I have done for to-day,’ she said; ‘and you know you are going with me round my district. Don’t look so miserable about Arabella; I have sacrificed her to the satisfaction of the others—the greatest happiness of the greatest number, don’t you know? But all the same, it’s all there—every word’s true. I’ve no more doubt she’s a nasty, ill-speaking, ill-tempered toad, than I have that you are the nicest girl I know—only it doesn’t always do to say it. If there were many unfavourable ones, inquirers would fall off. I give them one now and then to show what I can do when I think proper. Come along. We’ll take a look at the children first, and then we’ll go—and forget that there ever was a cheap photograph done. Oh, how I loathe them all!’ Mrs. Sitwell said.
They went upstairs accordingly to see the children, of whom there were three, the youngest being a baby of some seven or eight months old. ‘They are not fit to be seen,’ said the nursemaid, who was maintained by those photographs.
‘They have got their nursery overalls on, and not very much underneath,’ said their mother. ‘We keep our swell things for swell occasions. But look at those legs!’ Joyce was not deeply learned in babies’ legs, her experience lying among elder children. But there are few women to whom the round, soft, infantine limbs—‘the flesh of a little child,’ as the Old Testament writer says, when he wants to describe perfect health and freshness—have not a charm, and she was able to admire and praise to the mother’s full content. ‘Little Augustine—we give him his full name to distinguish him from his father, and also because of the church—is really wonderfully clever, though I say it that shouldn’t,’ said Mrs. Sitwell; ‘and little May is the most perfect little mother! You should see her taking care of baby! Do you know, I was at my Characters two days after that boy was born. I couldn’t afford to lose a week! I sat up in bed and did them. Don’t you think it was clever of me?’ she said, with a laugh, as they went downstairs—‘and never did me the least harm.’ The rapid succession of aspects in which this little person disclosed herself took away Joyce’s breath. Her mind was of slower action than that of her new friend. She had not been able to settle with herself what she thought of the photographs and the Pictorial and the sacrifice of the ugly Arabella, when her companion flashed round upon her in the capacity of the devoted and admiring mother, which softened her sharp voice, and lit up her face with love and sweetness.
Joyce had further surprising experiences to go through in the district, to which she now accompanied the parson’s wife, and where everything was new to her. She thought within herself, if the minister’s wife had fluttered into her granny’s cottage in the same way and stirred up everything, that the reception Janet would have given her would have been far from agreeable. Yet probably the minister’s wife had more means of help than Mrs. Sitwell, and the poor women whom she visited more actual money in the shape of wages than Janet had ever possessed. Joyce felt herself retire with a shiver, feeling that quick resentment must follow, when the charitable inquisitor put questions of a more than usually intimate character—but no such result appeared. And there could be no doubt about the practical advantage and thorough sympathy of the visitor. She had a basket in her hand, out of which came sundry little gifts, and her suggestions were boundless. ‘I have some old frocks of my boy’s that would just do for that little man. Are you sure you can mend them and make them up for him?’
‘Well, ma’am, I could try,’ the poor woman would say, with a curtsey.
‘Oh, I don’t believe in trying unless you know how to do it,’ said the parson’s wife; ‘come up to my house at six, and bring the child, and I’ll fit them on him, and show you how. You ought to go to the mothers’ meeting, where they will show you how to cut out and put things together. It would be so useful to you with all your children.’ ‘Well, Mrs. Smith,’ she ran on, darting in next door, ‘I hope things are going on all right with you. Now he’s taken the pledge, you ought to be so much more comfortable. But, dear me! you are in as great a muddle as ever.’
‘He’s took the pledge, but he’s not kep’ it,’ said the woman sullenly.
‘I don’t wonder, if he has only a house like this to come home to. Why, if I were in a cotton gown and a big apron like you, I’d have it all spick and span in an hour. I wish I could turn to this moment,’ cried the little lady, quivering with energy, ‘and show you what sort of a place a man should come home to. Poor Mr. Smith, I don’t wonder he’s broken the pledge. Why, that poor child makes my heart ache. When did it have its face washed?’
‘I haven’t the heart to begin,’ said Mrs. Smith, subsiding into feeble crying— ‘I’m that ill and weak. And I don’t never get on with anything.’
‘Poor thing! is that so? I thought you couldn’t be well, you’re so helpless. I’ll send the mission woman tomorrow morning to put all straight for you, and you’d better go to the doctor tomorrow and let’s get at the bottom of it. If you’re ill we must get you set right. I’ll come and see what the doctor says, and I’ll send you something down for the man’s supper. But for goodness’ sake wash the baby’s face and get the place swept up a little before he comes in. That can’t hurt you. Come, you mustn’t lose heart—we’ll see you through it,’ said the parson’s wife.