“Jock o’ Hazeldean,” “Down among the Heather,” and “Birks of
Aberfeldie.” The more she sung, the better she did it; and when she
wound up with “A Health to King Charlie,” the room quite rung
with the stirring music made by the big piano and the little maid.
“By George, that ‘s a jolly tune! Sing it again, please,” cried Tom’s
voice; and there was Tom’s red head bobbing up over the high
back of the chair where he had hidden himself.
It gave Polly quite a turn, for she thought no one was hearing her
but the old lady dozing by the fire. “I can’t sing any more; I ‘m
tired,” she said, and walked away to Madam in the other room.
The red head vanished like a meteor, for Polly’s tone had been
decidedly cool.
The old lady put out her hand, and drawing Polly to her knee,
looked into her face with such kind eyes, that Polly forgot the
impressive cap, and smiled at her confidingly; for she saw that her
simple music had pleased her listener, and she felt glad to know it.
“You must n’t mind my staring, dear,” said Madam, softly pinching
her rosy cheek. “I have n’t seen a little girl for so long, it does my
old eyes good to look at you.”
Polly thought that a very odd speech, and could n’t help saying,
“Are n’t Fan and Maud little girls, too?”
“Oh, dear, no! not what I call little girls. Fan has been a young lady
this two years, and Maud is a spoiled baby. Your mother ‘s a very
sensible woman, my child.”
“What a very queer old lady!” thought Polly; but she said “Yes ‘m”
respectfully, and looked at the fire.
“You don’t understand what I mean, do you?” asked Madam, still
holding her by the chin.
“No ‘m; not quite.”
“Well, dear, I ‘ll tell you. In my day, children of fourteen and
fifteen did n’t dress in the height of the fashion; go to parties, as
nearly like those of grown people as it ‘s possible to make them;
lead idle, giddy, unhealthy lives, and get blas, at twenty. We were
little folks till eighteen or so; worked and studied, dressed and
played, like children; honored our parents; and our days were
much longer in the land than now, it seems to, me.”
The old lady appeared to forget Polly at the end of her speech; for
she sat patting the plump little hand that lay in her own, and
looking up at a faded picture of an old gentleman with a ruffled
shirt and a queue.
“Was he your father, Madam?
“Yes, dear; my honored father. I did up his frills to the day of his
death; and the first money I ever earned was five dollars which he
offered as a prize to whichever of his six girls would lay the
handsomest darn in his silk stockings.”
“How proud you must have been!” cried Polly, leaning on the old
lady’s knee with an interested face.
“Yes, and we all learned to make bread, and cook, and wore little
chintz gowns, and were as gay and hearty as kittens. All lived to be
grandmothers and fathers; and I ‘m the last, seventy, next birthday,
my dear, and not worn out yet; though daughter Shaw is an invalid
at forty.”
“That ‘s the way I was brought up, and that ‘s why Fan calls me
old-fashioned, I suppose. Tell more about your papa, please; I like
it,” said Polly.
“Say ‘father.’ We never called him papa; and if one of my brothers
had addressed him as ‘governor,’ as boys do now, I really think he
‘d have him cut off with a shilling.”
Madam raised her voice in saying this, and nodded significantly;
but a mild snore from the other room seemed to assure her that it
was a waste of shot to fire in that direction.
Before she could continue, in came Fanny with the joyful news
that Clara Bird had invited them both to go to the theatre with her
that very evening, and would call for them at seven o’clock. Polly
was so excited by this sudden plunge into the dissipations of city