NINETY-NINE, MADEIRA STREET.
THERE were other things connected with the house besides its number which could have been expressed by the figure nine. For instance, its tenant, Mr. Grainger, had a family of nine children, and the day on which my story opens happened to be the ninth birthday of Olive, the third girl, and the sixth child.
Perhaps it will be better if I tell you at once the names of the younger inmates of the house, and say a few words about each of them as I pass from one to the other.
Edgar, the eldest, was sixteen, and for nearly a year had gone daily to a large wholesale warehouse in the City. Next came Dorothea, generally called Dora; she was a year younger, and was just now rejoicing in the fact that she had left school. Between her and the twins, Katie and Robert, was a difference of two years.
These were followed by Lancie, the dearest of her flock to Mrs. Grainger, for a mother, though full of tenderness for all her children, always loves the afflicted most. He was nearly eleven, but his pale face and pain-sharpened features made him look much older. When a child of five, he had been stricken with paralysis, and had never recovered the use of one of his legs. It was so much shorter than the other that he had to walk on crutches, and his health was so delicate and his body so weakly that he was often confined for days together to the couch, which, in consequence, had gained the name of "Lancie's sofa."
In strong contrast to the little invalid came sturdy Giles. He was younger, but he was a full head taller than the brother who was his senior by twelve months. There was the same difference between him and Olive. Then came Lottie, aged six, the last of the family being the two-year-old Philip, the pet and plaything of them all.
But that it was Olive's birthday was not the chief circumstance that made the day a memorable one at 99, Madeira Street. It was the last in which the whole family would be together for a long time; for early on the following morning Mr. Grainger would leave his home in London to sail for Australia, and, in all probability, a year would elapse before he would again set foot on his native land.
It had cost him much to make up his mind to leave his wife and children, and only a very strong inducement had led him to arrive at such a decision.
Mr. Grainger was a clerk in a large English and Colonial Bank, and though from time to time his salary had been increased, his wife, with her large family, had found it as much as she could do to make both ends meet.
She was, however, a capital manager, and the end of the year always saw her expenses within the limits of her income.