“Well, that is rather astonishing, I confess,” said Harry, looking at his fresh wristband with a little admiration. “I don’t believe those awkward red fingers ever did it. She must keep some private fairy in a box, or have made an agreement with a nameless personage. What if poor Lizzie’s soul were in danger on account of your fine linen, you hard-hearted Milly! I do not believe you would care.”
“Ah! you can’t deny her talents in the laundry,” cried I, with a little injudicious laughter. “What a triumph that is! You never were content with anybody’s work before.”
Harry looked at me rather doubtfully. “You look very much as if you were a little cheat,” he said. “I’ll have a peep into the laundry one of these days myself.”
“But Lizzie must go with us,” said I. “I have taken very much to the strange creature. You and I are God’s orphans too. We have a right to be good to her; and it is not all on one side—don’t think it, Harry; she is very good to me. She helps me with all her might, and stands by me whenever I want, or tries to do it. I had rather have her than half-a-dozen common servants. Leave this to me.”
“But consider, Milly, what you are making yourself responsible for,” cried Harry.
I stopped his mouth; I would not let him speak; and danced away with baby all in my joy and comfort to put him to bed. We met Mrs. Saltoun on the stairs in the dark, and as she kissed the child, I kissed my good old lady out of the fulness of my heart. “We are going away, but it is only to Chester; we shall be together still,” I said in her ear. I never thought how strange she would think it that I should be pleased to leave her, or how she might wonder at my spirits getting up so easily. I was very happy that night.
Lizzie was putting all baby’s things away when I went into the room. She folded and laid them all aside more nicely than I could have done it myself; not, so far as I know, because orderliness came natural to her, but because, with all her heart, she had wanted to please me, and saw with her quick eyes how it was to be done best. When anybody looked at Lizzie, and she knew it, she was just as awkward as ever. How I had laboured to make her hands and her feet look as if they belonged to her, without twisting up or going into angles! but it was all of no use. Whenever anybody looked at Lizzie, she would stand on one foot, and seek refuge of an imaginary pinafore for her hands; but just now, in the firelight, when you could only half see her, you cannot think how tidily and nicely the uncouth creature was going about her work.
I paused before the fire after the child was in bed. “Lizzie,” said I, standing in the warm light, and looking down into it, “do you like Edinburgh very much?” I did not look round for her answer, I waited till she should come to me; and yet felt pleased to see her, with “the tail of my eye,” as Mrs. Saltoun would have said, flitting about after one thing and another, through the pleasant darkness, with the firelight all glimmering and shooting gleams of reflection into it, shining in the drawers, and chairs, and furniture, which Lizzie’s hands had rubbed so bright. I could not help thinking, with a little pride and self-complacency, that it was all my doing. If I had not taught her, and taken pains with her—but then, to be sure, if she had not been wonderfully clever and capable; the one thing had just as much to do with it as the other. But, between her exertions and my own, I had been very successful in my little maid.
“Edinburey?” said Lizzie, coming up to me, with a lingering sound in that genuine Edinburgh tone of hers, “eh, mem, isn’t it rael bonnie? They say there’s no such another bonnie town in the world.”
“But there are, though,” said I; “they say quantities of foolish things. Lizzie, the regiment is ordered away.”