A few minutes by rail conveyed them to a charmingly country-like suburb, with neat villas dotting the landscape, and a few picturesque old red brick cottages scattered about here and there.
Such a drive to such a scene, reader, may seem very commonplace to you, but what tongue can tell, or pen describe, what it was to Tottie Bones? That pretty little human flower had been born in the heart of London—in one of the dirtiest and most unsavoury parts of that heart. Being the child of a dissolute man and a hard-working woman, who could not afford to go out excursioning, she had never seen a green field in her life. She had never seen the Thames, or the Parks. There are many such unfortunates in the vast city. Of flowers—with the exception of cauliflowers—she knew nothing, save from what little she saw of them in broken pots in the dirty windows of her poor neighbourhood, and on the barrows and baskets of the people who hawked them about the city. There was a legend among the neighbours of Archangel Court that once upon a time—in some remote period of antiquity—a sunbeam had been in the habit of overtopping the forest of chimneys and penetrating the court below in the middle of each summer, but a large brick warehouse had been erected somewhere to the southward, and had effectually cut off the supply, so that sunshine was known to the very juvenile population only through the reflecting power of roofs and chimney-cans and gable windows. In regard to scents, it need scarcely be said that Tottie had had considerable experience of that class which it is impossible to term sweet.
Judge then, if you can, what must have been the feelings of this little town-sparrow when she suddenly rushed, at the rate of forty miles an hour, into the heavenly influences of fields and flowers, hedgerows, and trees, farm-yards and village spires, horse-ponds, country inns, sheep, cattle, hay-carts, piggeries, and poultry.
Her eyes, always large and liquid, became great crystal globes of astonishment, as, forgetful of herself, and almost of baby, she sat with parted lips and heaving breast, gazing in rapt ecstasy from the carriage window.
Miss Stivergill and Miss Lillycrop, being sympathetic souls, gazed with almost equal interest on the child’s animated face.
“She only wants wings and washing to make her an angel,” whispered the former to the latter.
But if the sights she saw on the journey inflated Tottie’s soul with joy, the glories of Rosebud Cottage almost exploded her. It was a marvellous cottage. Rosebushes surrounded it, ivy smothered it, leaving just enough of room for the windows to peep out, and a few of the old red bricks to show in harmony with the green. Creepers in great variety embraced it, and a picturesque clump of trees on a knoll behind sheltered it from the east wind. There was a farm-yard, which did not belong to itself, but was so close to it that a stranger could scarcely have told whether it formed part of the Rosebud domain or that of the neighbouring cottage. The day, too, was exceptionally fine. It was one of those still, calm, sunny, cloudless days, which induce healthy people sometimes to wish that earth might be their permanent home.
“Oh, bybie!” exclaimed Tottie Bones, when, having clambered to the top of the knoll, she sat down on a tree-root and gazed on the cottage and the farm-yard, where hens were scratching in the interest of active chickens, and cows were standing in blank felicity, and pigs were revelling in dirt and sunshine—“Oh, bybie! it’s ’eaven upon earth, ain’t it, darling?”
The darling evidently agreed with her for once, for, lying on his back in the long grass, he seized two handfuls of wild-flowers, kicked up his fat legs, and laughed aloud.
“That’s right, darling. Ain’t it fun? And such flowers too—oh! all for nothing, only got to pull ’em. Yes, roll away, darling, you can’t dirty yourself ’ere. Come, I shall ’ave a roll too.” With which remark Tottie plunged into the grass, seized the baby and tumbled him and herself about to such an extent that the billycock hat was much deteriorated and the feather damaged beyond recovery.