When Rosalie went downstairs next morning, she found her father and the lady of the house in earnest conversation over the fireplace in the best parlor. They stopped talking when the child came into the room, and her father welcomed her with a theatrical bow.
“Good morning, madam,” he said. “Glad to find that you have benefited by your nocturnal slumbers.”
Rosalie walked up to the fire, with the kitten in her arms, and the lady of the house gave her a condescending kiss, and then took no further notice of her.
It was a strange life for little Rosalie in the dirty lodging house, with no mother to care for or to nurse, and with no one to speak kindly to her all day long but poor Betsey Ann.
Clatter, clatter, clatter, went those slipshod shoes, upstairs and downstairs, backwards and forwards, hither and thither. Sweeping, and dusting, and cleaning, and washing up dishes from morning till night, went poor Betsey Ann. Whenever she stopped a minute, her mistress’s voice was heard screaming from the dingy parlor, “Betsey Ann, you lazy girl, what are you after now?”
That afternoon, as Rosalie was sitting reading in her little attic, she heard the slipshod shoes coming upstairs, and presently Betsey Ann entered the room.
“I say,” she said, “there’s a young boy wants to speak to you below. Can you come?”
Rosalie hastened downstairs, and found Toby standing in the passage, his hat in his hand.
“Miss Rosie, I beg pardon,” he said, “but I’ve come to say goodbye.”
“Oh, Toby! Are you going away?”
“Yes,” said Toby. “Master doesn’t want us anymore this winter. He’s got no work, for us, so he has sent us off. I’m right sorry to go, I’m sure I am.”
“Where are you going, Toby?”
“I can’t tell, Miss Rosie,” said he, with a shrug of his shoulders. “Where I can get, I suppose.”
“Oh, dear! I am sorry you must go,” said the child.
“I shall forget all my learning,” said Toby, mournfully. “But I tell you what, Miss Rosie. I shall be back here in spring. Master will take me on again, if I turn up in good time, and then you’ll teach me a bit more, won’t you?”
“Yes,” said Rosalie, “to be sure I will. But, Toby, you won’t forget everything, will you?”
“No, Miss Rosie,” said Toby, “that I won’t! It’s always coming in my mind. I can’t curse and swear now as I used to do. Somehow the bad words seem as if they would choke me. The last time I swore (it’s many weeks ago now, Miss Rosie), I was in a great passion with one of our men, and out came those awful words, quite quick, before I thought of them. But the next minute, Miss Rosie, it all came back to me all about the Good Shepherd, and how He was looking for me, and loving me, and I at that very time doing just what vexes Him. Well, I ran out of the caravan, and I tried to forget it, but somehow it seemed as if the Good Shepherd was looking at me quite sorrowful like. And I couldn’t be happy, Miss Rosie, not until I’d asked Him to forgive me, and to help me never to do so no more.”
“I’m so glad, Toby!” said little Rosalie. “If you love the Good Shepherd, and don’t like to grieve Him, I think He must have found you, Toby.”
“Well, Miss Rosie, I must be off; only I couldn’t go without bidding you ‘goodbye.’ You’ve been so good to me, Miss Rosie.”
Rosalie did not like the company she met in the large lodging house. They were very noisy, and the child kept out of their way as much as possible. Many of them were actors and actresses, and were in bed till nearly dinner time. So the morning was the quietest time in the lodging house. Even the lady of the house herself was often not up. Then Rosalie would sit with the kitten on her knee before the fire in the dingy parlor, thinking of her mother and of her Aunt Lucy, and putting her hand every now and then inside her dress, that she might be quite sure that her precious locket and letter were safe.
No words can describe how much Rosalie disliked going to the theater now. It was a low dirty place, and filled every evening with very bad-looking people. Rosalie went there night after night with her father, and the lady of the house, who was an actress in the same theater, went with them. She was not unkind to Rosalie, but simply took no notice of her. But to Rosalie’s father she was very polite. She always gave him the best seat in the dingy parlor, and the chief place at table, and consulted his comfort in every possible way. Often when Rosalie came suddenly into the room, she found her father and the lady of the house in earnest conversation, which was always stopped the moment that the child entered. As they drove together in the cab to the theater, many whispered words passed between them, of which Rosalie heard enough to make her feel quite sure that her father and the lady of the house were on the best of terms.
And so the weeks and months passed by, and the time drew near when the days would be long and light again, and her father’s engagement at the theater would end, and he would set out on his summer rounds to all the fairs in the country. Rosalie was eagerly looking forward to this time. She was longing to get out of this dark lodging house, to have her own caravan to herself, where she might read and pray undisturbed, to breathe once more the pure country air, to see the flowers and the birds and the trees again, and to see poor old Toby, and to continue his reading lessons. To all this Rosalie looked forward with pleasure.
But Betsey Ann grew very mournful as the time drew near.
“La!” she would say, again and again, “what ever shall I do without you? Whoever shall I find to read to me then, as you have done?”
And then the slipshod shoes dragged more heavily at the thought, and the eyes of poor Betsey Ann filled with tears. Yet she knew now that, even when Rosalie went away, the Good Shepherd loved her, and would he with her still.