The Story of Jessie | Page 8

happier again."
CHAPTER III.
SHOPPING AND TEAING.
The next morning some of Jessie's shyness had returned, but it vanished again at the sight of the mug with the pictures and the plate with the "words" on it. At the liberal dishful of bacon and eggs she stared wide-eyed.
"You can eat a slice of bacon and an egg, can't you, dearie?" asked her granny.
"Yes, please!" with a sigh of pleasure. "May I?"
"Why, of course," said granny heartily. "Why not? Do you like eggs?"
Jessie nodded. "I had one once, a whole one, but that was for my dinner. We don't ever have eggs for breakfast at home," she added impressively.
"Don't you?" answered her grandfather gravely, "then what do you have? Something you like better, I s'pose?"
He did not ask from curiosity, that was the last thing he would have been guilty of; he only wanted to show an interest and to hear her talk.
"We don't have nuffin', 'cepts when father has got work, then father has a bloater. Me and mother have one too, sometimes, then. But when father is out of work we only has bread."
Patience turned pale, and Thomas groaned. Jessie looked up with quick sympathy. "Have you hurted your toof, granp?" she asked gravely, little dreaming that it was she herself who had given him pain.
"No, my dear, granp's all right. Try and make a good breakfast now. You've got to get as plump and round as the kitten over there."
Patience had laid down her knife and fork, and sat staring before her with miserably troubled eyes. "It seems wrong to be eating, when-- when there's others--one's own, too--going hungry!"
"Nonsense now," said Thomas gruffly; "don't 'ee talk like that, mother, it's foolish. We've got to think of ourselves and those about us, and it's our duty to eat and drink and be sensible, whether we likes it or not." He spoke gruffly, because he felt that if he spoke in any other way, he or Patience would break down.
Jessie came to their help, though. "My rose is nearly out, granp," she announced proudly, as soon as she was able to lift her thoughts from the wonderful experience of having an egg and bacon for breakfast. "I saw it all showing pink. I expect by the time we've finished our breakfases it will be right wide out. You come up and see too, will you?"
And sure enough when breakfast was really done, she took his hand in hers and led him up and into the room he had shunned so long.
"I don't think it will be full out until to-morrow," he decided; but Jessie couldn't help thinking he had made a mistake, and many times that day she climbed the stairs to see, and was quite troubled when at last she had to go to bed, for fear the bud would open while her eyes were shut.
"I think it is a very slow rose," she said, shaking her head sagely as her granny was undressing her. "I am sure it ought to have been out by this time."
And then, after all her watching, the bud burst into full bloom before Jessie was awake the next morning. When she opened her eyes and saw it she felt quite vexed. "I wish I had put you back in a dark corner," she said to it, "then you wouldn't have opened till I was awake."
"The little maid is a born gardener," chuckled her grandfather, when he was told of it; "'tis the folk that talks to their flowers that gets the best out of them."
"If talking'll do it, her rose-bush will be covered thick, then," laughed her grandmother.
"I wish I could send some of my roses to mother," sighed Jessie; "mother loves roses," and the tears came into her eyes. "Granny, do you think my roses will all be gone before mother comes for me?"
"Your--mother! Is she coming?" Patience was so taken aback that she spoke in almost a dismayed tone, and Jessie, with her loving little heart and quick ears, noticed it and was hurt. It sounded to her as though her granny did not want her mother; and her chin quivered and her eyes filled, for she wanted her mother very much, and every one else should want her too, she thought.
Her grandfather saw the poor little quivering lips and tear-filled eyes, and understood. "The rose may be past," he said cheerfully, "for the time, any way, but we'll have flowers of some kind ready for mother whenever she comes. 'Tis you and I, little maid, will see to that, won't we? We must make it our business to have something blooming all the year round, then we'll be sure to be right."
Jessie looked up at him gratefully, and the tears changed to smiles. Something told her that granp would be glad to see