240 
THE LADIES' FLORAL OABINE1 ’. 
all that dirt, as a flower ’lfgrow up out of the mold that’s 
nourished it. I’ve looked at her as I’ve come through 
the court many a time, and never been able to get her 
face from before my eye all day afterwards. There 'ud 
be five black-eyed, big-headed little tilings moping about 
in the dirt, some inside the door, and some out. while 
Jerry sat in his window whistling over his work; and 
there on the doorstep ’ud be little Mercy. I’ve seen her 
sitting there a good many times, yet I’ve never seen the 
same look on that child's face twice in my life; she 
seemed always so different from the others, so busy in 
her thoughts. I never saw her play, ever since she 
was out of her mother’^ arms ; she seemed to do nothiug 
but sit and read, and nurse babies on the doorstep. 
Once, when I was having a gossip with Jerry,—who 
had his share of tongue. I can tell you.—some boys in 
the court got teasing little humpbacked Tommy, and 
Mercy’s face got quite fierce as she watched them. She 
asked Jerry to speak to them two or three times, but he 
always said, O, Tommy doesn’t mind it! ’’ So I went 
myself and sent .the boys off. and brought back Tommy 
to where his brothers and sisters were at play. 
" Do you think he doss mind it then?” I said to Mercy. 
“I don’t know,” she said, with a great sigh. “ I do. 
I mind it so much, when they’re mocked and pointed at. 
that I wish they ware dead, and I'm always wishing 
they'd never been born.” 
1 ou see. the poor child felt all that Tommy would have 
felt if he had been right sharp, which he wasn’t: and all 
that Jerry would have felt, if his^eyes had been open to 
the wretched bringing up of his children, which they 
were not: and all that Nance would have felt, if she’d 
been a different kind of woman: but as for poor Nance, 
she thought if she clouted them all round once or twice 
a day, and kept them from getting to any water, she was 
giving them as good an education as a poor cobbler's 
children ought to expect. 
Well, I went away from Pickersgill for three years or 
so, and when I came back I found Mercy grown up, and 
the talk of all the place. Her face was small: not round, 
nor dimpled, yet not thin-looking, but beautifully soft, 
and of the same warm whiteness all over; just, perhaps, * 
a little warmer in the middle of the cheeks, as you see 
a bunch of apple-blossoms gets pinker towards the heart. 
Yes, certainly, if this kind of face, with full and sorrow¬ 
ful blue eyes, with a blue shadow lying under them, and 
pinky eyelids heavy with black lashes that seemed 
always wanting to go to sleep on her cheek, a mouth 
like two cherries pressing together,—if a face like this, 
set round with rings of chestnuty hair, can make a girl 
pretty, certainly Mercy had such a one, and must have 
been called pretty even now ; though ideas have clianged 
since the days she used to put the clerks at Flounger’s 
out of their reckoning every time she passed the office- 
windows. 
Now, at the time of my coming back to Pickersgill, 
Mercy had four sweethearts. 
There was Smilish, the red-haired herring-man, always 
sliding in a soft word with his herrings, till Jerry was 
obliged to leave off having them, which was a great pri¬ 
vation to the family,—herrings, and Smilisli’s herrings 
in particular, being cheap just then. 
Then, too, there was Felix Hadup, a real gentleman 
clerk at Flounger’s office, who, for the love of Mercy, 
took to wearing out his boots in quite a wonderful way, 
so that Jerry always had a pair on hand. And, one day, 
when a dragoon regiment was billeted on Pickersgill, all 
the children playing out of doors at Gadsliill-in-tho-Fields 
began to cry and rush home; and Jerry himself, he tolls 
me, quaked a bit when he looked up and found a great 
fellow, standing six feet in his boots, before his window, 
with his face as red as his coat, making a downright 
honest offer through his great moustache for Mercy, 
wanting to march her off to Ireland with his regiment 
next morning. Of course, Mercy was called to speak 
for herself, through the window; and, poor fellow, as 
he went back up the court he looked so mild and meek 
that, instead of being afraid of him, all the children took 
hold of hands, and stood in a line staring at him so that 
he couldn’t pass. 
He was the third. Well, the fourth was a man who, 
of all men in the world, came least to Jerry’s fancy, as 
you may know when I tell you that that man was Dan 
Harroway,—ay. Dan o' the water, Dan himself. You 
recollect him. ay, ay? There'll be something happen 1 
should think when black-eyed Dan’s forgotten in these 
parts. Ah. talk of your Charlie Steers and your Willie 
Stackletous of these days, — the girls stare after them, 
it's true. — but Dan, dark Dan o’ the waters, he was 
something to stare after. I warrant you. Ah. it’s all 
very well; but, Mr. Martin, begging your pardon, I won’t 
believe your housekeeper there forgets all the heartaches 
Dau made in Pickersgill among the lasses of her day. 
Come, come, that’s part of my story : you needn’t take 
my ale away for that: there’s no danger of Dan now : 
eh. Mistress Sicklemore ? 
Well, I suppose there’s no occasion for me to tell any 
of vou that Dan wasn’t a saint. Though I do say he 
wasn’t worse than Charlie the waterman, or Will the 
horse-breaker. In the first place, he was driven to lead 
the sort of life he did in a good part by his old miser of 
a father, who turned him out of doors at sixteen. Then, 
you know, being such a dare-devil with horses, such a 
fellow with his oar. and such a little king in his looks, 
he got soon picked up. and petted, and spoiled by the 
sporting gentlemen about here,—ay, and I may say. by 
more than one sporting lady too. Why, there was my 
lady Caperdown, they say, would have married him out 
and out, only she got a shock when Dan took her first 
love-letter to her son’s valet, thinking it was some order 
about the stables, and commanded him, like an emperor 
to read it to him as he couldn’t either read or write. 
How often I’ve seen him standing in his bright top- 
boots and scarlet hunting-coat outside here; or in his 
striped regatta shirt, amongst all the low fellows who 
seem to grow out of the water at boating times, stand¬ 
ing out from them all, as I tell you, like a born king. 
He had a clear dark skin, with the blood always flushing 
under it, but never standing florid in his cheeks ; curly 
black hair ; and black eyes,—not an eye like Jerry’s, 
though it was as black, but not as soft and merry, and 
contented, but a restless, fierce black eye, that seemed 
to be always roaming about, looking for something it 
could never find; and every glance seemed edged and 
pointed like a steel dart. He had half a score of names, 
—the Little King, the Emperor, the Sultan, Lucifer; and 
as far as pride and dark good looks went, I must say, he 
deserved them all, and the last particularly. I think he 
was prouder to women than to men, and had need have 
been if all the talcs I’ve heard were true. I don’t mean 
