1899 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
Lizzie’s Lad. 
Miss Jean Brown clipped her bread in 
her tea. Her teeth were not so good as 
they had been, although she was little 
more than 40 years of age. But too 
many tea diets will tell in the end. She 
was seated at breakfast at a plain 
painted table, at the opposite side of 
which sat, daintily sipping her tea, her 
half-sister—pretty, yellow-haired Lizzie, 
who, as yet, had scarcely passed her 
eighteenth year. Lizzie’s mother, an 
English nurse-girl, whom Jean’s father 
had married late in life, had died in giv¬ 
ing her birth, three months after the ac¬ 
cident which had carried off “the old 
man.” 
“You’ll be a mother to my baby, Jane? 
Promise me,” pleaded the dying young 
widow. “You’ll look a^cer her till she 
grows up, won’t you?” 
And Jean had answered brusquely 
enough, for her manner was abrupt to 
a fault, “I promise ye, Alice. I’ll look 
efter her a’richt.” 
And Jean had kept her word, although 
she had been looking forward to soon 
having a home of her own, and now had 
to abandon such a sweet prospect for 
the sake of a puling, sickly infant, who 
had “nae business to be in the warld at 
a’,” as Jean often muttered to herself. 
Had to abandon, indefinitely, the pros¬ 
pect of married life! “No,” said John 
Fairlie, the draper’s assistant, with 
whom she was keeping company; “no, 
there’s nae use for that. We’ll talc’ ’er 
wi’s. What odds ’ll the bairn mak’?” 
“She’ll mak’ a fell odds, John, gin she 
were two or three years auld,” quoth 
Jean. “Na, na, lad! I’ve ta’en my back- 
fu’, but I winna burden you wi’d. An’, 
mind ye, ye needna think I’ll greet when 
yer back’s aboot. I’m nane o’ that kind. 
I like ye rael weel; but juist you get 
another joe, an’ forget aboot me.” 
John Fairlie didn’t quite take her at 
her word, but, when coming to see her 
week after week for a couple of years, 
he found that she was immovable in her 
purpose, it cannot be wondered at, per¬ 
haps, that he began to tire. 
And so that she mightn’t cross his path 
at all, Jean Brown ceased by and by to 
go here and there where she would be 
likely to meet him; above all, she de¬ 
serted the church where Sunday after 
Sunday she had seen him. 
Miss Jean, then, was munching away 
at her softened bread, her keen, yet not 
unkindly, black eyes fixed on her half- 
sister. 
“An’ so ye’ve gotten a lad, Lizzie, like 
the lave,” she said, for Lizzie had been 
unbosoming herself. 
“Ay, Jean,” assented Lizzie, bashfully, 
and rubbing her golden “fringe”—a 
habit she had when disturbed. 
“An’ whaur did ye meet ’im?” 
“At the Sabbath-schule,” replied Liz¬ 
zie. “He’s the superintendent,” she 
added, with no little pride. 
“Preserve me! he canna be very 
young, then,” ejaculated Jean. 
“He’s no that auld”—Lizzie tossed her 
pretty golden head. 
“Aweel, we’ll see,” said Miss Brown. 
“An’ he’s cornin’ the nicht to speak 
about the merridge, ye say?” 
“Ay. I tell’t ye that,” Lizzie assented, 
somewhat impatient in her confusion. 
“Noo, dinna speak aboot it ony mair i’ 
the noo, Jean.” 
Jean had mercy, and ate her sop and 
drank her overdrawn tea in musing si¬ 
lence, giving vent to her feelings now 
and again by the ejaculations—“Ay, 
ay!” “Dear, dear!” 
Breakfast over, she proceeded to tidy 
the kitchen, while Lizzie washed her 
pretty face at the sink, preparatory to 
setting off to her employm ;nt. She was 
assistant and general cleaner-up in a 
small shop in the West Port. 
Miss Jean Brown, tall, buxom, rosy- 
faced—notwithstanding the fact that she 
lived up a close in the Overgate—was a 
dressmaker and milliner in a humble 
way, as her “room” window, which 
looked to the Overgate, informed the 
world in general in large red-painted 
characters. 
In the kitchen were evidences of her 
joint professions. A smart velvet toque, 
with a scarlet wing—ready for the girl 
who had ordered it so soon as she should 
call with the payment for it—stood on a 
gaudy china vase, for lack of a better 
hat-stand, in the window; while a skele¬ 
ton frame, on which skirts and gowns 
were wont to be hung in the course of 
draping, reclined in rather a drunken 
attitude in one corner of the apartment, 
its back against the wall. Although Miss 
Jean did not now go to church, she 
nevertheless revered her minister, and 
over the bed hung a portrait of the rev¬ 
erend gentleman, with a text beneath, 
“I am the Bread of Life,” sewed by Liz¬ 
zie’s own clever fingers. It was not ap¬ 
propriate, certainly, but no impiety— 
the reverse, indeed—was intended. 
The kitchen tidied—in a rough fashion 
—Jean proceeded to “the room,” where 
fittings-on and important consultations 
regarding bonnets and gowns took place. 
The duty of tidying here finished, Miss 
Jean tied her big cutting-out scissors to 
her waist, and was ready to begin her 
day’s work. The various mill whistles 
and gongs were sounding before Lizzie 
had given the last twist with hot tongs 
to her yellow “bang,” so she was hur¬ 
ried and anxious to be off. 
“Ask Mary Riley to send Pate up wi’ 
half a peck o’ tatties as ye pass her 
door, Lizzie,” said Miss Jean, as the girl 
wriggled herself into the brown jacket 
that was too tight for her. “I’ll mak’ 
tattle soup the day: An’ I’m sayin’,” 
she shouted, a sudden thought seized her 
as the girl whisked out of the door and 
her feet were heard rattling down the 
stone stairway, “I’m sayin’, Lizzie, 
what’s e’s name?” returning to the sub¬ 
ject of the breakfast conversation. Liz¬ 
zie was half-way down the stair, but, 
hurried as she was, she had still some 
sense of decorum. 
“Dinna let a’ the neebors ken,” she 
said, returning and putting a bright 
flushed face in at the door. “He’s name’s 
juist John—John Fairlie.” 
“What?” ejaculated Jean, sharply. 
“What are ye sayin’, ye fule bairn?” 
But Lizzie was beyond word or cry 
this time. “It canna be! Toots, it canna 
be!” said Miss Jean to herself, pulling 
the sewing machine from its corner and 
sitting down to it. “John Fairlie was 
fowre year aulder nor me. That wid 
mak’ ’im 45, an’ him to think on that 
bairn! Hoots! It’ll be a son o’ his!” 
So she quieted her heart, and she sang, 
as usual, to the “birr” of her machine. 
Lizzie had a whole hour in which to 
eat her potato soup, but as her half- 
sister seemed preoccupied she took from 
her dress pocket a crumpled copy of the 
Friend, and with her feet on the fender 
(for it was January) lost herself soon in 
one of its popular serials. 
The tea things had scarcely been 
cleared away in the evening when a rap 
was heard at the door. Customers, un¬ 
less they were new and unacquainted 
with Miss Jean Brown, milliner and 
dressmaker, always opened the door, 
and entered with a quiet “Are ye there, 
Jean?” So Lizzie on this occasion 
started, and rubbing her yellow “bang” 
said, excitedly, “Jean, that’s him. Open 
the door.” 
“Open’d yersel’,” replied Miss Jean, 
with difficulty, her mouth being full of 
pins; “open’d yersel’. He’s no my lad.” 
Ay, but when Lizzie, smiling and 
blushing ushered in the visitor, she 
found that this John Fairlie was in deed 
and truth her “lad,” or rather the very 
John Fairlie that had been so when Liz¬ 
zie lay an infant in long clothes in her 
unaccustomed arms. 
“Come in, John; come in,” said she, as 
though feeling neither pain nor pleasure 
MOTHERS.—Be sure to use “Mrs. Wins¬ 
low’s Soothing Syrup” for your children 
while Teething. It is the Best— Adv. 
791 
at his appearing. “It’s just you, efter a’. 
I thocht Lizzie’s lad was maybe a son 
o’ yer ain. Come 'in, by.” 
So John came in, followed for a step 
or two by Lizzie, utterly unable to in¬ 
terpret her step-sister’s words. 
John was shamefaced—what man in 
his place would not have been?—but he 
was a sensible as well as good man, and 
he said manfully, “It’s juist mysel’, 
Jean. I’ve been a’ thae years without 
wife or wean because ye wadna talc’ me, 
an’ noo I houp ye’ll gi’e me yer bonnie 
lassie. I ken I’m auld be her, but ‘better 
be an auld man’s dawtie’—ye ken the 
lave o’d,” he added, with a forced little 
laugh. 
“If the bairn hersel’ disna objec’, hoo 
sud I?” said Jean; but there were tears 
in her eyes and an unwonted softness in 
her voice. “Eh, me! ye’ve cheenged but 
little, John Fairlie!” she added. “You 
needna speak aboot bein’ auld! You’ve 
aye gotten yer meat, I warrant me”— 
(with unconscious and self-revealing 
emphasis). “Come away, Lizzie; what 
are ye stannin’ i’ the door for? Come 
awa’ aside yer lad!” 
Soon Jean put on her dolman and bon¬ 
net and went out, leaving the unequally 
aged lovers together. Maybe the strong- 
minded woman had a “bit greet” all by 
herself out in the cold January streets, 
for her eyes were suspiciously red when 
at about eight o’clock she returned with 
a jug full of steaming tripe and some 
meally puddings in a paper bag. How¬ 
ever that may be, the supper was quite 
a cheery affair, Lizzie being herself the 
quietest through very excess of happi¬ 
ness. And John told Miss Jean all about 
the nice shop he now was tenant of, and 
the snug half-flat of which golden- 
haired Lizzie was to be mistress. 
As the sisters retired to rest, Lizzie, 
always more demonstrative than Jean, 
exclaimed as she unbound her yellow 
locks: 
“Oh, Jean, if you had juist a nice lad, 
too, wid’t be fine?” 
And Jean, wearing a crochet nightcap, 
said, simply, as she put a gathering coal 
on the fire and set the kettle on the 
hob: 
“Lassie, what wid I do wi’ a lad?”— 
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