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THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. |
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unconscious manner ; for he stood observing Bertha with an anxious wondering face, that never altered its expression.
" Good bye, young shaver!" said the jolly Carrier, bending down to kiss the child; which Tilly Slowboy, now intent upon her knife and fork, had deposited asleep (and strange to say, without damage) in a little cot of Bertha's furnishing; " good bye ! Time will come, I suppose, when you'll turn out into the cold, my little friend, and leave your old father to enjoy his pipe and his rheumatics in the chimney-corner; eh ? Where's Dot ?"
" I'm here, John ! " she said, starting.
" Come, come !" returned the Carrier, clapping his sounding hands. " Where's the pipe ?"
"I quite forgot the pipe, John."
Forgot the pipe ! Was such a wonder ever heard of! She ! Forgot the pipe !
" I'll—I'll fill it directly. It's soon done."
But it was not so soon done, either. It lay in the usual place• the Carrier's dreadnought pocket; with the little pouch, her own work, from which she was used to fill it ; but her hand shook so, that she entangled it (and yet her hand was small enough to have come out easily, I am sure), and bungled terribly. The filling of the pipe and lighting it; those little offices in which I have commended her discretion, if you recollect ; were vilely done, from first to last. During the whole process, Tackleton stood looking on maliciously with the half-closed eye; which, whenever it met hers —or caught it, for it can hardly be said to have ever met another eye : rather being a kind of trap to snatch it up—augmented her confusion in a most remarkable degree.
" Why, what a clumsy Dot you are, this afternoon!" said John. " I could have done it better myself, I verily believe ! "
With these good-natured words, he strode away; and presently was heard, in company with Boxer, and the old horse, and the cart, making lively music down the road. What time the dreamy Caleb still stood, watching his Blind Daughter, with the same expression on his face.
" Bertha ! " said Caleb, softly. " What has happened ? How changed you are, my darling, in a few hours—since this morning. You silent and dull all day ! What is it I Tell me ! "
" Oh father, father!" cried the Blind Girl, bursting into tears. "Oh my hard, hard fate ! "
Caleb drew his hand across his eyes before he answered her.
" But think how cheerful and how happy you have been, Bertha ! How good, and how much loved, by many people." |
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