Madam Delia's Expectations

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But she became ashamed of the hardness of her palms, and she grew in general weary of her life. Her clothes pinched her, so did her new boots; Madam Delia had gone to Providence with the show, and Gerty had not so much as seen the new Chinese giant.

Of all days Sunday was the most objectionable, when she had to sit still in Friends' Meeting and think how pleasant it would be to hang by the knees, head downward, from the parapet of the gallery. She liked better the Seamen's Bethel, near by, where there was an aroma of tar and tarpaulin that suggested the odors of the show-tent, and where, when the Methodist exhorter gave out the hymn, "Howl, howl, ye winds of night," the choir rendered it with such vigor that it was like being at sea in a northeaster. But each week made her new life harder, until, having cried herself asleep one Saturday evening, she rose early the next morning for her orisons, which, I regret to say, were as follows:--

"I must get out of this," quoth Gerty, "I must cut and run. I'll make it all right for the old ladies, for I'll send 'em Anne. She'll like it here first rate."

She hunted up such remnants of her original wardrobe as had been thought worth washing and preserving, and having put them on, together with a hat whose trimmings had been vehemently burned by Miss Martha, she set out to seek her fortune. Of all her new possessions, she took only a pair of boots, and those she carried in her hand as she crept softly down stairs.

"Save us!" exclaimed Biddy, who had been to a Mission Mass of incredible length, and was already sweeping the doorsteps. "Christmas!" she added, as a still more pious ejaculation, when the child said, "Good by, Biddy, I'm off now."

"Where to, thin?" exclaimed Biddy.

"To Providence," said Gerty. "But don't you tell."

"But ye can't go the morn's mornin'," said Biddy. "It's Sunday and there's no cars."

"There's legs," replied the child, briefly, as she closed the door.

"It's much as iver," said the stumpy Hibernian, to herself, as she watched the twinkling retreat of those slim, but vigorous little members.

They had been Gerty's support too long, in body and estate, for her to shrink from trusting them in a walk of a dozen or a score of miles. But the locomotion of Stephen's horse was quicker, and she did not get seriously tired before being overtaken, and--not without difficulty and some hot tears--coaxed back. Fortunately, Madam Delia came down from Providence that evening, on a very unexpected visit, and at the confidential hour of bedtime the child's heart was opened and made a revelation.

"Won't you be mad, if I tell you something?" she said to Madam Delia, abruptly,

"No," said the show-woman, with surprise.