The name of Natty’s little sister was Nellie; that of his grandmother, Nell—old Nell, as people affectionately called her.
Now it may perhaps surprise the reader to be told that Jack Matterby, at the age of nine years, was deeply in love. He had, indeed, been in that condition, more or less from the age of three, but the passion became more decided at nine. He was in love with Nell—not blue-eyed little Nellie, but with wrinkled old Nell; for that antiquated creature was brimming over with love to mankind, specially to children. On our hero she poured out such wealth of affection that he was powerfully attracted to her even in the period of Johnny-hood, and, as we have said, she captured him entirely when he reached Jack-hood.
Old Nell was a splendid story-teller. That was one of the baits with which she was fond of hooking young people. It was interesting to sit in the fisherman’s poor cottage and watch the little ones sitting open-mouthed and eyed gazing at the withered little face, in which loving-kindness, mingling with fun, beamed from the old eyes, played among the wrinkles, smiled on the lips, and asserted itself in the gentle tones.
“Jack,” said Mrs Matterby, on the Christmas morning which ushered in her boy’s ninth birthday, “come, I’m going to give you a treat to-day.”
“You always do, mammy, on my birthdays,” said Jack.
“I want you to go with a message to a poor woman,” continued the mother.
“Is that all?” exclaimed Jack, with a disappointed look.
“Yes, that’s all—or nearly all,” replied his mother, with a twinkle in her eye, however, which kept her son from open rebellion. “I want you to carry this basket of good things, with my best love and Christmas good-wishes, to old Nell Grove.”
“Oho!” exclaimed Jack, brightening up at once, “I’m your man; here, give me the basket. But, mother,” he added with a sudden look of perplexity, “you called old Nell a poor woman, and I’ve heard her sometimes say that she has everything that she needs and more than she deserves! She can’t be poor if that’s true, and it must be true; for you know that old Nell never, never tells lies.”
“True, Jack; old Nell is not poor in one sense: she is rich in faith. She has got ‘contentment with godliness,’ and many rich people have not got that. Nevertheless she has none too much of the necessaries of this life, and none at all of the luxuries, so that she is what people usually call poor.”