“Oh, Mr. Ashford,” said Lottie, “for anything! I don’t mind what it is. I thought, perhaps, if you would take him it would make him see the good of working. We are—poor; I need not make any fuss about saying that; here we are all poor; and if I could but see Law in an office earning his living, I think,” cried Lottie, with the solemnity of a martyr, “I think I should not care what happened. That was all. I wanted him to come to you, that you might tell us what he would be fit for.”
“He would make a good soldier,” said Mr. Ashford, smiling; “though there is an examination for that too.”
“There are examinations for everything, I think,” said Lottie, shaking her head mournfully; “that is the dreadful thing; and you see, Mr. Ashford, we are poor. He has not a penny; he must work for his living; and how is he to get started? That is what I am always saying. But what is the use of speaking? You know what boys are. Perhaps if I had been able to insist upon it years ago—but then I was very young too. I had no sense, any more than Law.”
The Minor Canon was greatly touched. The evening dew got into his eyes—he stood by her in the soft summer darkness, wondering. He was a great deal older than Lottie—old enough to be her father, he said to himself; but he had no one to give him this keen, impatient anxiety, this insight into what boys are. “Was there no one but you to insist upon it?” he said, in spite of himself.
“Well,” said Lottie meditatively, “do gentlemen—generally—take much trouble about what boys are doing? I suppose they have got other things to think of.”
“You have not much opinion of men, Miss Despard,” said the Minor Canon, with a half-laugh.
“Oh, indeed I have!” cried Lottie. “Why do you say that? I was not thinking about men—but only—— And then boys themselves, Mr. Ashford; you know what they are. Oh! I think sometimes if I could put some of me into him. But you can’t do that. You may talk, and you may coax, and you may scold, and try every way—but what does it matter? If a boy won’t do anything, what is to be done with him? That is why I wanted so much, so very much, to bring him to you.”
“Miss Despard,” said the Minor Canon, “you may trust me that if there is anything I can do for him I will do it. As it happens, I am precisely in want of some one to—to do the same work as another pupil I have. That would be no additional trouble to me, and would not cost anything. Don’t you see? Let him come to me to-morrow and begin.”
“Oh, Mr. Ashford,” said Lottie, “I knew by your face you were kind—but how very, very good you are! But then,” she added sorrowfully, “most likely he could not do the same work as your other pupil. I am afraid he is very backward. If I were to tell you what he is doing you might know. He is reading Virgil—a book about as big as himself,” she said, with a little laugh, that was very near crying. “Won’t you sit down here?”
“Virgil is precisely the book my other pupil is doing,” said Mr. Ashford, laughing too, very tenderly, at her small joke, poor child! while she made room for him anxiously on the bench. There they sat together for a minute in silence—all alone, as it might be, in the world, nothing but darkness round them, faint streaks of light upon the horizon, distant twinkles of stars above and homely lamps below. The man’s heart softened strangely within him over this creature, who, for all the pleasure she had, came out here, and apologised to him for coming alone. She who, neglected by everybody, had it in her to push forward the big lout of a brother into worthy life, putting all her delicate strength to that labour of Hercules—he felt himself getting quite foolish, moved beyond all his experiences of emotion, as, at her eager invitation, he sat down there by her side.