Our Frank, Amy Walton [best ereader for epub .txt] 📗

light of lanterns, but in the opposite direction it was all quite dark and silent, and that was the way to cousin Annie's. She knew it as well as possible, and it was not very far, quite a short distance, in the _daylight_--you had only to go down the lane, and turn a little to the right, and go in at the white gate near the pond. A very simple matter in the daytime; but now! Nan stepped back into the room; she would go and tell them that cousin Annie had gone, and then someone would go with her. But to her dismay she found the green-room dark and silent; they had all gone out by the other door without coming through the school-room, and Nan was alone. She stood irresolute, clutching the heavy shawl which Sophy had wrapped round her, and feeling half inclined to cry. There was only one thing to do now, and that was to go down the dark lane all by herself. Nan had been brought up in habits of the most simple obedience, and it never occurred to her to question any order. "You are to go to cousin Annie's," Sophy had said, so of course she must go.

She choked down a little sob, and pulled open the door again, and trotted out into the darkness. Her heavy shawl rather impeded her, so she could not go very fast, and the road was rough and uneven for her small feet. She looked up to see if she could find any comfortable twinkling star for a companion, but the sky was all black and overcast, and there was no moon. Then she said her evening prayer to herself, but it was very short and did not last long, and then all the hymns she knew, and then all the texts, and by that time she was nearly at the bottom of the lane, when, oh misfortune! She caught her foot in the dangling end of the big shawl and fell flat in the mud. It was very hard to keep back the tears after that; but she gathered herself up as well as she could and stumbled on, until at last she passed through the white gate, which stood open, and reached the front door of the Vicarage. But her troubles were not over yet, for she found that, even by standing on the very tips of her toes, she could reach neither bell nor knocker. She rapped as hard as she could with her soft little knuckles, but they made no more noise on the great door than a bird's beak would have done; and then she tried some little kicks, but no one came.

She felt very lonely and miserable with the black night all round her, and it seemed to make it worse to think of her brothers and sisters enjoying themselves so much at Mr Chorley's. How sorry they would be for Nan if they knew! And then she felt so sorry for herself, that she was obliged to sit down on the stone steps and cry. She was hungry, as well as frightened and cold, for she had been much too excited to eat anything at tea-time, and now it was past ten o'clock. Oh to be in her little white bed at home! She cuddled herself up as close to the door as she could, and laid her cheek against it, shrinking back from the darkness which seemed to press against her, and presently, how it came to pass she never know, her head began to nod and she went fast to sleep.

The next thing she remembered was hearing a voice say, quite close to her: "Why, it's little Nan! How did the child get here?" And then someone took her up, and carried her with strong arms into a warm room with bright lights. And then she found herself on cousin Annie's knee, and saw people standing round asking eager questions and looking very much amused. And no wonder, for Nan was a very funny-looking little bundle indeed, in spite of her woe-begone appearance; her round face was streaked with mud, and tears, and scarlet paint, and the odd little wig had fallen over one eye in a waggish manner. When the hood and shawl were taken off, a more disconsolate little Jack-in-the-box could hardly be imagined, for what with hunger, fatigue, and the comfort of feeling cousin Annie's kind arms round her, Nan's tears fell fast and she could not stop them.

They could just make out between her sobs something about "Sophy" and "sleeping," but that was all; and at last cousin Annie said, "Never mind, darling, you shall tell me all about it by and by." And then poor little weary Nan was carried upstairs, and washed, and put to bed, and cousin Annie brought her some supper, and sat by her until she dropped gently off to sleep.

It turned out afterwards that Fraulein in the excitement of the moment had forgotten to deliver the message about Nan, so that none expected her at the Vicarage. When she went home the next day Tom said she was quite a "little heroine." Nan did not know what that meant, but she was sure it was something pleasant.

And the best of it all was, that after this adventure Nan never felt so frightened of the dark again. But that she kept to herself.


STORY FIVE, CHAPTER 1.

PENELOPE'S NEEDLEWORK--A SHORT STORY.

One of the greatest trials of Penelope's life when she was ten years old was music, and the other, needlework; she could not see any possible use in learning either of them, and none of the arguments put forward by nurse, governess, or mother, made the least impression on her mind. It was especially hard, she thought, that she had to go on with music, because Ralph, her younger brother, had been allowed to leave off. "Won't you have pity on me, and let me leave off too?" she asked her mother one day imploringly. But mother, though she was touched by the pleading face, and though Penelope's music lessons were household afflictions, thought it better to be firm.

"You see, darling," she said, "that now you have got on so much further than Ralph it would be a pity to leave off. You have broken the back of it."

"Ah, no," sighed poor Penelope, "it's broken the back of me."

And then the needlework! Could there be a duller, more unsatisfactory occupation? Particularly if your stitches _would_ always look crooked and straggling, and when the thimble hurt your finger, and the needle got sticky, and the thread broke when you least expected it. It was quite as bad as music in its way. Penelope would sigh wearily over her task, and envy the people in the Waverley novels, who, she felt sure, never sewed seams or had music lessons.

For the Waverley novels were Penelope's favourite books, and she asked nothing better than to curl herself up in some corner with one of the volumes, and to be left alone.

Then, once plunged into the adventures of "Ivanhoe," or "Quentin Durward," or the hero of "The Talisman," her troubles vanished.

She followed her hero in all his varying fortunes, and was present at his side in battle; she saw him struggling against many foes, fighting for the poor and weak, meeting treachery with truth, and falsehood with faithfulness; she heard the clash of his armour, and watched his good sword flash in the air at the tournament; she trembled for him when he was sore wounded, and rejoiced with him when, after many a hard-won fray, he was rewarded by the hand of his lady love. Those were days indeed! There was something quite remarkably flat and stupid in sitting down to hem a pocket-handkerchief when you had just come from the tourney at Ashby de la Zouche, or in playing exercises and scales while you were still wondering whether King Louis the Eleventh _would_ hang the astrologer or not.

Penelope loved all her books. She had a shelf of her own in the play-room quite full of them, but the joy and pride of her heart were the Waverley novels, which her father had given her on her last birthday.

It was a great temptation to her to spend all her pocket-money in buying new books, but she knew this would have been selfish, so she had made the following arrangement. She kept two boxes, one of which she called her "charity-box," and into this was put the half of any money she had given to her; this her mother helped her to spend in assisting any poor people who specially needed it. The money in the other box was saved up until there was enough to buy a new book, but this did not occur very often. Penelope liked it all the better when it did, for, though she could read some stories over and over again with pleasure, they did not all bear constant study equally well, in some cases, she told her mother, "it was like trying to dry your face on a wet towel."

One morning Penelope, or "Penny," as she was generally called, was sitting in the nursery window-seat with a piece of sewing in her hands, it seemed more tiresome even than usual, for there was no one in the room but nurse, and she appeared too busy for any conversation. Penny had tried several subjects, but had received such short absent answers that she did not feel encouraged to proceed, so there was nothing to beguile the time, and she frowned a good deal and sighed heavily at intervals. At last she looked up in despair.

"What _can_ you be doing, nurse?" she said, "and why are you looking at all those old things of mine and Nancy's?"

Nurse did not answer. She held out a little shrunken flannel dress at arm's-length between herself and the light and scanned it critically, then she put it on one side with some other clothes and took up another garment to examine with equal care. Penny repeated her question, and this time nurse heard it.

"I'm just looking out some old clothes for poor Mrs Dicks," she said.

"Do you mean _our_ Mrs Dicks?" asked Penny. "What does she want clothes for?"

"Well, Miss Penny," said nurse, proceeding to look through a pile of little stockings, "when a poor woman's lost her husband, and is left with six children to bring up on nothing, she's glad of something to clothe them with."

Penny felt interested. "Our Mrs Dicks" had been her mother's maid, and after she married the children had often been to visit her, and considered her a great friend. Sometimes they went to tea with her, and once she had given Nancy, Penny's second sister, a lovely fluffy kitten.

Penny was fond of Mrs Dicks, and it seemed dreadful to think that she must now bring up six children on nothing. She felt, however, that she must inquire into the thing a little more.

"Why must she bring up her six children on nothing?" she asked, letting her work fall into her lap.

"Because," said nurse shortly, "she hasn't got any money or anyone to work for her. But if I were you, Miss Penny, I'd get on with my needlework, and not waste time asking so many questions."

"Well," said Penny, making