The cold weather was coming on. Already there had been one or two severe frosts, and the snow had come beating down the caravan chimney, almost extinguishing the little fire. Augustus thought it was high time that he sought for winter quarters, and, having made an engagement in a low town theater for the winter months, he determined to go to the town at once, and dismiss his company until the spring.
Rosalie’s father went first to an open space of a stable yard, where the caravans were stowed away for the winter. Here he left Rosalie for some time, while he went to look for lodgings in the town. Then he and the men removed from the caravans the things which they would need, and carried them to their new quarters. When all was arranged, Augustus told the child to follow him, and led the way through the town.
How Rosalie wondered to what kind of place she was going! They went down several streets, wound in and out of different squares and courts, and the child had to run every now and then to keep up with her father’s long strides. At last they came to a winding street full of tall, gloomy houses, before one of which her father stopped and knocked at the door.
The door was opened by a girl about fifteen years old, with a miserable, careworn face, and dressed in an untidy, torn frock, which had lost all its hooks, and was fastened with large white pins.
“Where’s your mistress?” said Augustus Joyce.
The girl led the way to the back of the house, and opened the door of a dismal parlor, smelling strongly of tobacco. Rosalie gazed around her at the dirty paper on the walls, at the greasy chair cover, and the ragged carpet, and was not favorably impressed with her new abode. There were some coarse prints in equally course frames hanging on the walls. A bunch of paper flowers, a strange mixture of pink and red, blue and green and orange, was standing on the table, and several cheap magazines were lying on the chairs, as if someone had just been reading them.
Then the door opened, and the mistress of the house entered. She was an actress; Rosalie felt sure of that the first moment she saw her. She was dressed in a faded, greasy silk dress, which swept up the dust of the floor as she walked in, and she greeted her new lodgers with an overpowering bow.
She took Rosalie upstairs, past several landings, where doors opened and people peered out to catch a glimpse of the new lodger, up to a little attic in the roof, which was to be Rosalie’s sleeping place. It was full of boxes and lumber, which the lady of the house had stowed there to be out of the way. In one corner the boxes were pushed on one side, and a little bed was put up for the child to sleep on, and a basin was set on one of the boxes for her to wash in. Rosalie’s own box was already there; her father had brought it up for her before she arrived, and she was pleased to find that it was still uncorded. There were treasures in that box which no one in that house must see!
The lady of the house told Rosalie that in a few minutes her supper would be ready, and that she must make haste and come downstairs. So the child hastily took off her hat and jacket, and went down the numerous stairs to a room in the front of the house, where tea was provided for those lodgers who boarded with the lady of the house.
The child was most thankful when the meal was over. The rude, coarse jests and noisy laughter of the company grated on her ears, and she longed to make her escape. As soon as she could, she slipped to her little attic. Here at least she could be alone and quiet. It was very cold, but she unfastened the box and took out her mother’s shawl, which she wrapped tightly around her. Then she opened out her treasures, and stowed them away as best she could. She opened the locket, and looked at the sweet, girlish face inside, and oh, how she wished she was with her Aunt Lucy! How would she ever be able to keep that locket safely? That was her next thought. There was no key to the attic door, nor was there a key to her box. How could she be sure, when she was out at the theater, that the people of the house would not turn over the contents of her box?
It was clear that the locket must be hidden somewhere, for Rosalie would never forgive herself if, after her mother had kept it safely all those years, she should be the one to lose it. She sat for some time thinking how she should dispose of it, and then came to the conclusion that the only way would be to wear it night and day around her neck underneath her dress, and never on any account to let anyone catch sight of it. It was some time before she could carry out this plan to her satisfaction. She tied the locket carefully up in a small parcel, in which she placed the precious letter which her mother had written to her Aunt Lucy, and she concealed the packet inside her dress tying it around her neck.
After this Rosalie felt more easy, and took out her little articles of clothing, and hung them on some nails which she found on the attic door. Then she took from her pocket her own little Testament, and crept up to the window to read a few verses before it was too dark.
As the shadows grew deeper and the room became darker, Rosalie felt very lonely and miserable. Once she thought she would go downstairs to look for her father, but whenever she opened the door there seemed to be such a noise and clamor below, that she did not like to venture. She felt as if her mother would have liked her to stay where she was. She could not read now, and it was very cold indeed in the attic. The child shivered from head to foot, and wondered if the long hours would ever pass away. At last she determined to get into bed, for she thought she should be warmer there, and hoped she might get to sleep; but it was still early, and sleep seemed far away.
Before long she felt something moving on the bed, and something very cold touched her hand. She started back at first, but in a moment she found it was nothing but the nose of a little soft furry kitten that had crept in through the opening of the door, which Rosalie had left a little ajar, that she might get a ray of light from the gas lamp on the lower landing. The poor little kitten was very cold, and the child felt that it was as lonely and dull as she was. She put it in a snug place in her arms and stroked it very gently, till the tiny creature purred softly with delight.
Rosalie did not feel so lonely after the kitten had come to her. She had been lying still for some time, when she heard a step on the stairs, and her father’s voice called “Rosalie, where are you?”
“I’m in bed,” said little Rosalie.
“Oh! all right,” said her father. “I couldn’t find you. Goodnight.”
He went downstairs, and the child was once more alone. She lay stroking the kitten, and wondering if she should ever get to sleep. It was the longest night she ever remembered. It seemed as if it would never be bedtime, at least the bedtime of the people downstairs. The talking and laughing still went on, and Rosalie thought it would never cease.
But at last the weary hours went by, and the people seemed to be going to bed. Then the light on the landing was put out, and all was quite still. The kitten was fast asleep. Rosalie at length followed its example, and dropped into a peaceful slumber.
She had been asleep a long, long time, at least so it seemed to her, when she woke up suddenly, and, opening her eyes, she saw a girl standing by her bedside with a candle in her hand, and looking at her curiously. It was the little servant girl who had opened the door for her and her father.
“What is it?” said Rosalie, sitting up in bed. “Is it time to get up?”
“No,” said the girl. “I’m only just coming to bed.”
“Why, isn’t it very late?” asked the child.
“Late! I should think it is late,” said the poor little maid. “It’s always late when I come to bed. I have to wash the pots up after all the others has gone upstairs. Ay! but my back does ache tonight! Bless you! I’ve been upstairs and downstairs all day long.”
“Who are you?” said Rosalie.
“I’m kitchen maid here,” said the girl. “I sleep in the attic next to you. What did you come to bed so soon for?”
“I wanted to be by myself,” said Rosalie; “there was such a noise downstairs.”
“La! do you call that a noise?” said the girl. “It’s nothing to what there is sometimes. I thought they were pretty peaceable tonight.”
“Do you like being here?” asked the child.
“Like it!” said the girl. “Bless you! did you say like it? I hate it. I wish I could die. It’s nothing but work, work, scold, scold, from morning till night.”
“Poor thing!” said Rosalie. “What is your name?”
“Betsey Ann,” said the girl, with a laugh. “It isn’t a very pretty name, is it?”
“No,” said the child. “I don’t like it very much.”
“They gave me it in the workhouse. I was born there, and my mother died when I was born, and I’ve never had a bit of pleasure all my life. I wish I was dead!”
“Shall you go to heaven when you die?” asked Rosalie.
“La! bless you, I don’t know,” said the girl. “I suppose so.”
“Has the Good Shepherd found you yet?” asked the child. “Because if He hasn’t, you won’t go to heaven, you know.”
The girl stared at Rosalie with a bewildered air of amazement and surprise.
“Don’t you know about the Good Shepherd?” asked the child.
“Bless you, I don’t know anything,” said the girl. “Nothing but my A B C.”
“Shall I read to you about it? Are you too tired?”
“No, not if it’s not very long.”
“Oh, it’s short enough. I’ve got my book under my pillow.”
So Rosalie read the Parable of the Lost Sheep. The girl put down her candle on one of the boxes and listened.
“It’s very pretty,” she said, when Rosalie had finished “but I don’t know what it means.”
“Jesus is the Good Shepherd,” said Rosalie. “You know who He is, don’t you, Betsey Ann?”
“Yes, He’s God, isn’t He?”
“Yes, and He loves you so much,” said the child.
“Loves me!” said Betsey Ann. “I don’t believe He does. There’s nobody loves me, and nobody never did!”
“Jesus does,” said Rosalie.
“Well I never!” said the girl. “Where is He? what’s He like?”
“He’s up in heaven,” said Rosalie, “and yet He’s in this room now, and He does love you Betsey Ann. I know He does.”
“How do you know? Did He tell you?”
“Yes. He says in this book that He loved you, and died that you might go to heaven. You couldn’t have gone to heaven if He hadn’t died.”
“Bless you! I wish I knew as much as you do,” said the girl.
“Will you come up here sometimes, and I’ll read to you?” said Rosalie.
“La! catch missis letting me. She won’t let me wink scarcely! I never get a minute to myself, week in week out.”
“I don’t know what I can do then,” said Rosalie. “Could you come on Sunday?”
“Bless you, Sunday’s busiest day in the week here. Lodgers are all in, and want hot dinners!”
“Then I can’t see a way at all,” said Rosalie.
“I’ll tell you what,” said the girl, “I’ll get up ten minutes earlier, and go to bed ten minutes later, if you’ll read to me out of that little book, and tell me about somebody loving me. Ten minutes in the morning and ten minutes at night. Come, that will be twenty minutes a day!”
“That would be very nice,” said Rosalie.
“But I get up awful soon,” said Betsey Ann, “afore ever there’s a glimmer of light. Would you mind being waked up then?”
“Oh, not a bit,” said Rosalie, “if only you’ll come.”
“I’ll come safe enough,” said the girl. “I like you!”
She took up her candle and was preparing to depart, when she caught sight of the kitten’s tail peeping out from Rosalie’s pillow.
“La! bless you, there’s that kit!”
“Yes,” said the child, “we’re keeping each other company, me and the kitten.”
“I should think it’s glad to have a bit of quiet,” said Betsey Ann. “It gets nothing but kicks all day long, and it’s got no mother. She was found dead in the coal cellar last week and it’s been pining for her ever since.”
“Poor little thing!” said Rosalie, and she held it closer to her bosom. It was a link of sympathy between her and the kitten. They were both motherless, and both pining for their mother’s love. She would pet and comfort that little ill-used kitten as much as ever she could.
Then Betsey Ann wished Rosalie goodnight, took up her candle, and went to her own attic, dragging her shoes after her.
And Rosalie fell asleep.