[CHAPTER III.]
THE young people were careful to have their room in a state of very unusual order on the following afternoon when their mother entered to spend the twilight hour with them and to continue her story. The small cousins were too much occupied with the many treasures of the doll's house to be much in the way.
"Go on as quickly as you can, mother," said Jack. "It seemed horrid to leave poor Lizzie and her parcels at that station last night, and crying, too, for want of a penny. I wish I had been there; I would have carried all her biggest parcels, and given her my new penny that Flossie thought of so little consequence last night."
"If it had not been lost past recovery, through the hole in your pocket, Jack," remarked Madge, the housewife. "But there is this about dear old Jack: his sympathy means something, and he will help as well as talk if there is anything he can do."
"I am sure of that," said mamma.
We will go back twenty years, and to Lizzie Northcote. I think I only told you her Christian name last night. Probably if she had spoken to one of the porters, he would have helped her out of the trifling difficulty; but the girl naturally spoke first to a lady, as the least likely to refuse her request. She was wiping away the tears which the coarse refusal had brought into her eyes, when, on looking up, she noticed a stout, ruddy-faced country gentleman observing her attentively. He had been about the station almost as long as herself, and appeared to be waiting for someone. He was a man in the full vigour of life and health, though his crisp hair was tinged with gray, and in his face there was a fatherly expression that reminded Lizzie of her own dear parent in their Lincolnshire home.
She was about making up her mind to speak to him, when he addressed her. "What is your trouble, dear child?" said he. "Anything I can do for you? You need not be afraid to speak; I have had children of my own, and still have one dear lass about your age. I wish her cheeks were half as rosy as yours."
There was a tinge of sadness about the last words, but there was no mistaking the manly, sympathetic ring of that kindly voice. Lizzie felt that she had found the friend she wanted, and she told her story in a few words, but did not ask her listener for a penny. There was no need to do that. Almost before she had finished, his hand was in his pocket, as he asked the name of the station at which she wished to alight; and, as soon as he knew it, he went to the booking-window, obtained a ticket, and placed it in the girl's hand.
"I don't know how to thank you enough," she said, half-laughing, half-crying. "It seemed so absurd to be kept here for want of a penny—to become a beggar for it, and to be refused, when I had the worth of so much money about me."
"Do not thank me at all, my child," said the gentleman. "But may I ask whether you sought help from the lady to whom you spoke?"