An Australian Lassie Part 25

"Each victory will help you Some other to win,"

sang Betty shrilly.

Dot's face went white, sheet white. She heard the judge's daughter speak of eau de nil chiffon, and a hat turned up at the side. She was at the head of thirty fashionable "young ladies," and a fashionable young governess was close by. She wore her best shoes (the ones with the toe-caps of Russian leather) and her best dress (white with the gold silk sash given by Alma Montague).

And there was Betty--dreadful scapegrace Betty, barefooted, dirty faced, bare-headed (her bonnet was of course under her arm), singing songs for coppers!

Dot coughed, went white, choked, and walked on. She simply had not the courage to step out from that line of fashionable demoiselles and claim her little sister.

But Alma Montague, who carried her purse for the purchase of chocolate nougats should a favourable opportunity occur, had her tender little heart touched by Betty's face and song.

"Each victory will help you Some other to win."

spoke directly to her, and her longing for chocolate nougats. She only had a shilling in her purse, wonderful to relate, and she and her conscience had a sharp short battle. Chocolate nougats or--pitiful hunger! Her face flushed as conscience won the battle.

The next second she had slipped out of line and run across to Betty.

"Here; little girl!" she said, and thrust a shilling into Betty's hand.

The little singer looked up, shy and startled, and her song died on her lips while her eyes plainly rejoiced over the shilling.

Then the English governess awoke from a happy day-dream and sharply ordered Alma back to her place.

"You should have asked permission," she said stiffly. "I cannot have such disorders. I will punish you when we return to school!"

Just as if the lost chocolates were not punishment enough.

The deed and the reprimand travelled along the line, whispered from mouth to mouth, till it came to Dot.

"That silly Alma Montague," the whisper ran, "has just broken line to give her money to that little beggar girl. She gave a shilling. She was going to buy chocolate nougats. Miss Arnott's going to punish her."

Dot's sensitive soul shuddered over the terrible Betty. If she had been looking up instead of down! If she had rushed forward and claimed her before the eyes of the wondering school! If Miss Arnott had known! If Alma Montague had known! If any one of all those thirty girls had even guessed!

The very possibility was so dreadful that Dot found herself unable to discuss fashion for all the rest of that const.i.tutional.

But later on in the day, in the evening, when the lamps were alight, she had crept away by herself to wonder where madcap Betty was. She felt quite sure she would go home again quite safely, she was always doing terrible things without any harm coming to her.

The tears that fell from Dot's eyes were not for Betty, but altogether for herself. She had disowned, by not owning, her sister! She had been afraid to step forward before those thirty pairs of eyes and say, "This is my sister!" And she felt as one guilty of a mean and dishonourable deed.

"I will tell every girl in the school in the morning," she said; and then, as her repentance increased: "I will tell them to-night."

And to her credit be it spoken, she descended to the schoolroom and weepingly told her story.

Some of the girls laughed, most of them "longed to know Betty," and all of the "intimate" friends tried to comfort Dot.

"You're _such_ a darling," said Mona. "You've made us all love you more than ever."

She was very enthusiastic for she _felt_ that Dot had been afraid and had conquered fear.

CHAPTER XIX

THE BENT-SHOULDERED OLD GENTLEMAN

"Let's go somewhere and count my money," said Betty, when she had watched the last pupil of Westmead House disappear down the long avenue.

"You see I _easily_ make a shilling an hour, don't I?"

John admitted she had chosen a good paying profession; and that if "things" didn't improve with him very soon he should try singing in the frequent spare moments of his errands running.

The day wore on, and although it must be recorded that Betty did not always make a shilling an hour, her "takings" were very fair, considering many things, notably her lack of voice and great shyness so soon as anything approaching an audience gathered around her.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Only a little barefooted girl asleep--fast asleep upon his lounge."]

By six o'clock a great weariness had crept over her. Unused to city pavements, her limbs ached wofully, her feet were blistered and swollen, her head ached from the noises of the busy city, and her heart ached for her little white bed at home. For the day was growing old and it was almost bed-time.

Presently the stars stole out and began to play at hide and seek, and Betty who had finished counting her money again, was still standing tiredly on one foot at the corner of Market and George Streets, waiting for John--John who had promised to be with her at six; and now it was after seven and he had not come.

The tears were too near for her to attempt to wile away the minutes with another song--tears of weariness and disappointment. The disappointment was caused by the non-arrival of the keen-eyed, bent-shouldered old gentleman who was to raise her eventually to the pinnacle of fame--and by John's absence.

It was just as this great matter was straining her heart almost to breaking point that a heavy hand fell upon her shoulders, and she looked up into the face of a roughly clad, ill-kempt looking man--a face that in some way seemed familiar to her.

"I b'lieve you're the very little girl as I've been on the look-out for all day," he said. "Le's look at you! Yes, s'elp my Jimmy Johnson, you are! If you'll just come along with me, we'll talk about your name an' a few other things."

He held out his hand and took hers.

"Your name," he said, "as it ain't John Brown, may be Elizabeth Bruce.

Ain't I right now?"

Betty tremblingly admitted that he was, and listened as she walked the length of a street by his side to his jocularly spoken lecture and to all the dire happenings--gaols, reformatories, ships, etc.--that befell she or he who left the home nest before such glorious time as they were twenty-one.

Finally Betty and her earnings were placed in a cab, and the man, holding her arm firmly, stepped in after her. He seemed to be afraid, all the time, that if he moved his hand from her she would be off and away. They rattled down the Sydney streets in the lamplight, which Betty had never seen before this night, to the harbour waters and across them in a punt, and the little girl thought tiredly of her journey in the greengrocer's cart not so very many hours ago.

The remembrance brought with it a flash of light. This man by her side was the greengrocer!--their morning friend. She decided that she would soon ask him about John, ask him whether he had found John also.

But before she could satisfactorily arrange her question a great heaviness settled down upon her, and her head nodded and her eyes blinked and blinked and fell too. And all thought of money-making and street-singing, and John Brown slipped away and left her in a merry land of dreams playing with Cyril and Nancy in the old home garden.

"Poor little mite," said the man, and he slipped his roughly clad arm around her and drew her towards him so that her head might rest on his coat. "Poor little mite! She'd find the world but a rough place, I'm thinking!"

And they sped onwards into the hill country where Betty's home was, and John's, and the little school-house and the white church and the wonderful corner shop. Only they stopped before they came to Betty's home, stopped at the great iron gates of her grandfather's dwelling, drove through them and up the dark gum tree shaded path.

The man, carrying the sleeping child in his arms, walked straight into the hall, to the huge astonishment of the sober man-servant who had opened the door.

"I'll wait here for yer master," he said.

The hall was wide and square, and contained besides three deck-chairs, a cane lounge covered with cushions.