A Pair of Clogs, Amy Walton [the little red hen read aloud .TXT] 📗

with whom?"

When her godmother spoke so very distinctly Iris knew how angry she was, and it was dreadfully difficult to answer at first. Presently, however, gathering courage she lifted her head and said almost defiantly:

"In the donkey-cart with Moore."

"Did you drive to Dinham with him?"

"No."

"How did you get there?" "I ran across the fields."

"And with what purpose beside that of disobeying me?"

"To fetch--" Iris stopped; she was approaching the fatal forbidden subject.

"To fetch what?"

"Medicine."

"Don't tell me untruths," said Mrs Fotheringham still more icily; "what could you want medicine for?"

"I'm telling the truth," said Iris indignantly; "it was for--"

"Well, well, well," said Mrs Fotheringham impatiently, "for--"

"Moore's baby," finished Iris, almost in a whisper.

"Now," exclaimed Mrs Fotheringham, falling back in her chair, "may Heaven grant me patience!" She remained leaning back in a flattened state for so long that Iris wondered if she were ill or going to faint; but just as she determined to call the maid her godmother raised herself into her usual erect position and beckoned.

"Come here," she said, "I've something to tell you. Sit down."

Iris sat down, feeling rather frightened, but yet as though the worst were over; at any rate she had nothing more to confess. "I invited you here," began Mrs Fotheringham, speaking very slowly and impressively, "with a certain object in view, and that was that I might judge whether it would be possible to offer to adopt you altogether. Had I done so it would have been an untold advantage to you in many ways, and a great relief to your parents, for your future would have been provided for. You have plainly shown me, however, that it would be impossible to have you here. You have shown selfish disregard for my comfort, disobedience, and low vulgar tastes. This last escapade has decided me. Your chance is over."

"What chance?" asked Iris, who had not altogether grasped her meaning.

"Your chance of living here at Paradise Court, and of being rich, instead of going back to Albert Street, where you will always be miserably poor, and have to work for your living."

"Oh, but anyhow," said Iris, now quite roused, "I couldn't possibly do that. I mean, I couldn't _live_ here even if you liked me."

"Why not?"

"Why, of _course_ I couldn't. How could I possibly leave father and mother and the others? _They_ wouldn't like it either."

"You like Albert Street better than this, I suppose," said Mrs Fotheringham coldly.

"Oh, _dear_, yes--much. As long as the others are there."

"You won't like it best always," said Mrs Fotheringham. "There will come a time when you'll remember that you've missed a chance. Why, you foolish child," she continued, speaking more earnestly and with a tone of half pity, "you don't know what money can do. It can do everything. If you are cold it can warm you, if you are dull it can amuse you, if you are hungry it can feed you, if you are insignificant it can make you a power in the world. It can bring people to your feet, and make them serve you."

"But not love you," said Iris quickly.

"Pooh!" said Mrs Fotheringham.

She hardly spoke again for the rest of the evening, but remained deep in thought, from which Iris did not dare to rouse her by any question. The next day had been arranged for her return home, and when everything was ready, and the carriage waiting at the door to take her to the station, she went to say farewell to her godmother and Paradise Court. She found her sitting in the verandah, with the parrot on a stand close by, and there was such a lonely look about her that for a moment Iris felt sorry.

"Good-bye, godmother," she said gently.

"Ah, you're going," said Mrs Fotheringham, holding out a hard white hand; then looking at her sharply:

"Are you glad to go?"

"I've enjoyed myself _very_ much," said Iris politely.

"But you like Albert Street better?"

"Well, you see, the others are all there." She could not help smiling a little as she thought how the "others" would all be at the station to meet her, and how they would laugh, and talk, and wave things, and kiss her, and how much she would have to tell them.

"I'll give you a proverb to take back with you," said Mrs Fotheringham after a moment's pause. "Try and remember it. `When Poverty comes in at the door, Love flies out of the window.' There never was a truer word spoken."

She leant back in her chair. The interview was ended. Iris's visit to Paradise Court was over.

But not the memory of it, that dwelt freshly in her mind for years; and when Susie and Dottie demanded again and again to be told how the duck sat under the bee-hive, or how Iris had driven from Dinham in the donkey-cart, the whole place came before her like a brightly painted picture. And in the picture were two things which it pleased her most to look at and remember--Miss Munnion's face when she had kissed her at the gate, and Moore's when he thanked her for fetching the "stuff for the little un,"--these always stood out clearly, even when the background of Paradise Court became dim and indistinct. Neither were her godmother's parting words and her proverb forgotten. Sometimes in after years, when Iris came to know what poverty really means, and when difficulties and troubles rose in Albert Street which a little more money would have relieved, she thought of them mournfully. Poverty had indeed come in at the door, and it might have been in her power to keep it out. She could not do that now, she had missed her "chance," as Mrs Fotheringham had said; but there still remained one other thing--Love should not fly out of the window. And he never did. Many hands, some of them small and weak, held him fast in 29 Albert Street, and he was always to be found there, though he might hide himself for a time.

"After all," said Iris to herself, "there are flowers here as well as in Paradise Court!"

And so there were. There is a crop that flourishes sometimes better in the hard soil of poverty and labour than where beauty, culture, art, and all that wealth can produce spread their soft influences. These are the flowers called patience, unselfishness, simplicity, love. They grow best, not where life is most pleasant to the senses, but where cold winds often blow roughly and outward things are ugly and poor.

"Nothing is sweeter than love, nothing more courageous, nothing higher, nothing wider, nothing more pleasant, nothing fuller nor better in heaven and earth."--_Thomas a Kempis_.

THE END.


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Publication Date: 09-10-2009

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