C02 THE LOVE-CHILD. 



my mode of treating them, they seemed to strike her as being replete 

 with fun. Once now and then, however, she turned pale, and stared 

 at me awfully ; and when I showed her the ridges raised on my 

 urchin hide, by the short-docker of that atrocious postilion base- 

 born as myself she recoiled with horror, and I had much ado to 

 prevent her from running away. As soon as I could prevail upon 

 her to resume the seat she had previously occupied, I excited her 

 interest by discoursing on my future prospects. I had made the 

 village by far too hot to hold me, and I considered it very advisable 

 to be off. It was Saturday evening, and I proposed, during the 

 night, to crawl away to Caddiscombe, where, if Lavolta kept his word, 

 I should meet with him at the fair, on Monday morning. Agnes 

 suggested, that the intervening Sabbath would starve me. To knock 

 this objection on the head, I proposed to pocket my untouched ma- 

 tinal mess of fried potatoes, and vesper ditto of brown bread and 

 cheese : besides, I should meet with lots of hawthorn buds, and it 

 was hard, if, after all my experience as I meant to work my way 

 as much as possible in covert I couldn't find at least one squirrel's 

 winter hoard of nuts unexhausted, in the Caddiscombe woods. 



We were sitting opposite each other in the diagonal furrow, into 

 which I had first thrown myself. Agnes, with a melancholy glance, 

 surveyed the space between my naked head and my naked ankles 

 she gazed on tatters. Granny never thought of buying me raiment 

 I clothed myself. The nether garments I wore, were my own. I 

 purchased them for a penny three months before, from Dick Withers, 

 who had found them somewhere ; my jacket was a loan. I had no 

 pretension to shirt, waistcoat, hat, shoes, or stockings. Had I ac- 

 cepted the two latter articles from Ezra and his wife, perhaps I 

 should not have had the courage to have worn them in me, and 

 among my companions, it would have looked proud. 



Agnes, without speaking a word, took from her bosom a little 

 huswife, given to her for the purpose of dressing her dolls. Selecting 

 a little fairy needle, and threading it with a bit of blue silk, she knelt 

 down and commenced sewing up a large rent which revealed the 

 whole of my right knee. We soon began to talk again, and before 

 she had proceeded far in cobbling up the numberless breaches in my 

 garments, I had half persuaded her to be the companion of my medi- 

 tated expatriation for such the flight to Caddiscombe to both of us 

 appeared. Her father had often threatened to pack her off to a 

 boarding-school ; but do what she would to make him angry, he still 

 delayed the fulfilment of his menace, which it was her intense desire to 

 bring about, for she felt sick of home, and longed to learn dancing. 

 Poor little dear ! She had no mother no sisters or brothers no com- 

 panions. Her intercourse with humanity was rigidly restricted : 

 with nothing to do, she felt herself enslaved. When a good girl, she 

 was allowed to play with her dolls in the parlour or the garden ; 

 when deemed naughty, she was shut up with them in the brown 

 closet, behind the back bed-room. 



We were just on the point of coming to a conclusion, when some- 

 body tittered we looked up, and there was Blue Peter ; over his 

 shoulder gleamed the ruddy countenance of Dolly. They had over- 



