A Flat Iron for a Farthing | Page 4

his
own grief to comfort mine. Once more I was "dressed" after tea. Of late
my bony nurse had not thought it necessary to go through this
ceremony, and I had crept about in the same crape-covered frock from
breakfast to bedtime.
Now I came down to dessert again, and though I think the empty place
at the end of the table gave my father a fresh shock when I took my old
post by him, yet I fancy the lonely evening was less lonely for my
presence.
From his intense indulgence I think I dimly gathered that he thought me
ill. I combined this in my mind with a speech of my nurse's that I had
overheard, and which gave me the horrors at the time--"He's got the
look! It's his poor ma over again!"--and I felt a sort of melancholy
self-importance not uncommon with children who are out of health.
I may say here that my nurse had a quality very common amongst
uneducated people. She was "sensational;" and her custom of going
over all the circumstances of my mother's death and funeral (down to
the price of the black paramatta of which her own dress was composed)
with her friends, when she took me out walking, had not tended to
make me happier or more cheerful.
That night I ate more from my father's plate than I had eaten for weeks.
As I lay after dinner with my head upon his breast, he stroked my curls

with a tender touch that seemed to heal my griefs, and said, almost in a
tone of remorse,
"What can papa do for you, my poor dear boy?"
I looked up quickly into his face.
"What would Regie like?" he persisted.
I quite understood him now, and spoke out boldly the desires of my
heart.
"Please, papa, I should like Mrs. Bundle for a nurse; and I do very
much want Rubens."
"And who is Rubens?" asked my father.
"Oh, please, it's a dog," I said. "It belongs to Mr. Mackenzie at the
school. And it's such a little dear, all red and white; and it licked my
face when nurse and I were there yesterday, and I put my hand in its
mouth, and it rolled over on its back, and it's got long ears, and it
followed me all the way home, and I gave it a piece of bread, and it can
sit up, and"--
"But, my little man," interrupted my father--and he had absolutely
smiled at my catalogue of marvels--"if Rubens belongs to Mr.
Mackenzie, and is such a wonderful fellow, I'm afraid Mr. Mackenzie
won't part with him."
"He would," I said, "but--" and I paused, for I feared the barrier was
insurmountable.
"But what?" said my father.
"He wants ten shillings for him, Nurse says."
"If that's all, Regie," said my father, "you and I will go and buy Rubens
to-morrow morning."

Rubens was a little red and white spaniel of much beauty and sagacity.
He was the prettiest, gentlest, most winning of playfellows. With him
by my side, I now ran merrily about, instead of creeping moodily at the
heels of nurse and her friends. Abundantly occupied in testing the tricks
he knew, and teaching him new ones, I had the less leisure to listen
open-mouthed to cadaverous gossip of the Cadman class. Finally, when
I had bidden him good-night a hundred times, with absolutely fraternal
embraces, I was soothed by the light weight of his head resting on my
foot. He seemed to chase the hideous fancies which had hitherto passed
from nurse's daytime conversation to trouble my night visions, as he
would chase a water-fowl from a reedy marsh, and I slept--as he
did--peacefully.
Nor was this all. My other wish was also to be fulfilled, but not without
some vexations beforehand. It was by a certain air and tone which my
nurse suddenly assumed towards me, and which it is difficult to
describe by any other word than "heighty-teighty," and also by dark
hints of changes which she hoped (but seemed far from believing)
would be for my good, and finally, by downright lamentations and
tragic inquiries as to what she had done to be parted from her boy, and
"could her chickabiddy have the heart to drive away his loving and
faithful nursey," that I learned that it was contemplated to supersede her
by some one else, and that if she did not know that I was to blame in
the matter, she at any rate believed me to have influence enough to
obtain a reversal of the decree. That Mrs. Bundle was to be her
successor I gathered from allusions to "your great fat bouncing women
that would eat their heads off; but as to cleaning out a nursery--let them
see!"