The more Old Grumpy looked at the letter she had found, the more troubled and perplexed she became. No doubt the letter was addressed to some relative of the dead woman, and no doubt if the officer had it, he would be able to find out who she was, which Mrs. Perkins had said he had been quite unable to do. Ought she not to take it to him tomorrow when she went to the house for her bread?
But no, she could not make up her mind to do that, for would it not rob her of the child, the lovely, pretty child who was just beginning to love her? If the child’s friends were found, and they came to take her away, Old Grumpy felt as if it would break her heart.
The old woman was ill at ease as she sat by her fire. At one moment she had resolved to go with the letter to Mrs. Perkins, at the next she was ready to throw it in the fire, and so to destroy all chance of her darling being taken from her. At one moment she was angry with herself for being so heartless and cruel as to keep the child from, possibly, a better home and better friends than she could ever have with her; at the next she was angry with everyone and everything but herself, and was quite persuaded to do anything rather than run the risk of losing her little Lily.
This struggle in her mind went on for several hours. The church clock struck one hour after another, and she was the only one in the court who heard it, for the neighbors were fast asleep. And at length, just as it solemnly announced to the neighborhood that it was two o’clock in the morning, she made up her mind to say nothing about the letter to anyone, at least for the present, but to lock it up safely in the box under the bed, with the lock of fair hair, the old purse, and the wedding ring.
Then she crept into bed beside the child.
Every day that passed, her little Lily grew more dear to Old Grumpy’s heart. Every day that passed, made her less inclined to post the letter that might be the cause of taking the child from her.
Although Lily never forgot her own dear mother, and although she still talked much about the heaven where she was gone, and wondered many times in the day what she was doing, still she was as happy as a little bird in the old woman’s room. It was no longer a dark and cheerless place. The sunbeams, as they looked in, saw a happy little girl there, who was more of a sunbeam in the once dismal place than they, the sunbeams, were themselves.
Old Grumpy’s life was now a very happy one. If it had not been for that letter in her box, she would have been quite contented; but she could not forget it, and she had a kind of nameless dread of it. She would get it out sometimes when her darling was asleep, and turn it over, and try to make out the letters, and would wonder again and again what was inside it.
But that seemed to be the only cloud in her sky. When her little girl was talking to her, and she was listening to her pretty voice; when she was walking hand-in-hand with her in the fields outside the city; when she was making a chain of the daisies she had gathered in her walk, and when she was hanging them round the old woman’s neck; when she was hugging her, and stroking her face, and calling her “her own dear, darling Grum;” then the old woman’s happiness was complete.
There was nothing she would not do for the child. She was ready to be the helper of the court, to run the neighbors’ errands, to clean their houses, to mend their clothes, to mind their children, to do anything and everything by means of which she might earn a little to help her to keep her darling.
And the neighbors were very kind. Many a little present for the child found its way to Old Grumpy’s room. Sometimes it was an old frock, carefully patched and mended; sometimes a pinafore that had been outgrown; sometimes it was a new little garment, bought with money that had been carefully saved for the orphan child; sometimes it was only a pudding, or a cake, or a biscuit; but, whatever it was, it was given cheerfully and gladly and was thankfully received by the old woman as adding to her darling’s comfort. As for her own small hoard in the box under the bed, it grew less and less; but each time Old Grumpy took from it, she did so with greater pleasure and with less pain. “Anything for my pretty child,” she would say each time to herself as she unlocked the box.
Everyone in the court was fond of “Old Grumpy’s bairn,” as they called her. Her quaint, quiet, old-fashioned ways won all their hearts. Even old Joel would call her into his room and would make his wonderful cat go through its performances for her amusement; and, when she clapped her hands with delight, he would pat her on the head and tell her to come again for she was “as welcome as never was!” The children followed her about as if she were a newly-arrived curiosity and were always kind and gentle to her in their play.
Bet Mrs. McKay’s Albert Joseph was her great ally. He was a quiet, grave-looking child, very unlike his noisy brothers and sisters. When they were scampering about the house or playing at marbles in the court, he would sit on his stool before the fire gazing at the flames and thinking.
“I never saw such a bairn as that,” said his rosy-cheeked mother. “He does all the thinking for the lot of us. Me and his father is too busy for that sort of thing, and as for Georgiana Maria and the rest, they’re too fond of their fun; but Albert Joseph has his thoughts; I do assure you—he has his thoughts.”
But what Albert Joseph’s thoughts were, no one had ever been able to discover until “Old Grumpy’s bairn” arrived on the scene. Between Lily and Albert Joseph there sprang up a great and firm friendship. They were never tired of being together. They would sit side by side for hours in the sunshine on one of the doorsteps of the court, or would wander hand-in-hand down the street looking in at the shop windows, or would stand gazing in at the churchyard gate watching the sparrows hopping from tree to tree and sitting on the old smoky gravestones near the churchyard wall.
“Grum,” said Lily one day, “Albert Joseph thinks.”
“What does he think?” said the old woman stopping in the midst of her washing. “His mother says he thinks a many things; what is it now?”
“He thinks,” said the child, “that my mother isn’t always singing in heaven.”
“Why, what does he think she does then?” said Old Grumpy.
“He thinks she works for God,” said the child reverently; “and he thinks, maybe, she goes to see the stars, and all the beautiful places God made; that’s what Albert Joseph thinks! He says his Sunday-school teacher told them all about heaven last Sunday. However does she know about it, Grum? Has she been there?”
“No, my lamb,” said the old woman. “She couldn’t go there till she died. Maybe she’s read about it.”
“But how did the books know about it?” said the child still more puzzled. “Somebody must have been to see.”
“Well, bairn, I don’t know. I only know folks learn a lot in books, and they seem to think it’s true.”
Lily lay still, watching Old Grumpy, who was very busy with her washing again, scrubbing and rubbing her little darling’s clothes, that she might make them as white as snow.
There was a long pause, and then she asked suddenly, “Why don’t I go to the Sunday school, Grum?”
“You!” said the old woman. “Why, you’re such a little mite of a thing! You’ll go when you’re a big girl.”
“I’m as big as Albert Joseph, anyhow,” said Lily, stretching herself that she might look as tall as possible.
“Bless you, my darling,” said the old woman “Do you really want to go?”
“Ever so much,” said Lily, jumping up. “Oh, Grum, may I?”
“You may do anything you like, my bairn,” said the old woman as she stooped to kiss her.