Chapter III: Two Lonely Girls

ERE many days had passed, James Macardie was laid to rest in an obscure corner of a crowded cemetery. His was a rough, parish funeral, and no one, save his two children, mourned at his grave.

Their hearts were very heavy as they turned away from the dreary spot, feeling utterly alone in the world.

"We have only each other now, Kathleen," whispered Molly, clinging close to her sister's side.

But Kathleen made no reply, and seemed hardly aware that her sister spoke. The poor girl's grief was wild and passionate. She had sobbed till she could sob no more, and her eyelids were so red and swollen that she looked quite unlike the pretty Kathleen in whom her father had taken such pride.

Molly wept more quietly, but perhaps her sorrow was even greater than her sister's. Certainly it pressed upon her heart long after Kathleen, in the excitement of her engagements at the theatre, had shaken off all signs of grief. And yet the father whom she mourned had never shown much affection for little Molly.

To neither of his children had he been a very good parent, for his indulgence of Kathleen had been as unwise as his utter neglect of little Molly. His had been a sinful, wasted life, for though he had ever considered himself an ill-used man, the truth was that his own foolish, thriftless habits had been the cause of all the want and distress which had troubled his last days. He had come to see this when health and strength were gone, and it was too late to do better. He felt then it was his own fault that his death would leave his children in such poverty.

Remorse was keen when he reflected that his darling Kathleen, the lovely child of whom he had been so proud, would be left without a friend to guard her from the perils which must surround her girlhood. Fears for Kathleen's future had distressed him as he felt his end approaching, and the promise he had gained from little Molly had but slightly calmed his dread.

The two children were indeed in a most desolate position. They had but just returned from seeing their father laid in his grave when the mistress of the house in which they lived came to tell them that she should soon want to let their room to another lodger, so they had better lose no time in getting ready to move. She reminded them that they owed her several weeks' rent, and glancing around the room obligingly named the articles of furniture she was willing to accept instead of money.

Molly and Kathleen looked at each other in dismay. Where could they find another home if they were turned out of this shelter?

"You cannot expect us to leave at once," exclaimed Kathleen, indignantly. "You will give us time to find another place, I suppose?"

"Oh! Kathleen, where can we go?" cried Molly. "Shall we have to go to a horrid place like Ivy Court, where the women are always drunk and quarrelling? Oh, dear! I wish we could stay here." And she looked wistfully round the familiar room.

"I don't want to be hard on you," said the woman, "but it's not likely I could let you have one of the best rooms in the house for the small sum you would pay. However, there's a little room higher up which I can let to you for a trifle."

And to this room the girls agreed to remove on the following day, though they were far from pleased with the look of their new home.

It was a bare, little garret, draughty and cold, with no window save a skylight. It had been empty for a long time, and dust lay thick on the floor. The window was darkened with dirt, and innumerable cobwebs hung from the ceiling.

Molly's heart sunk within her at the first sight of the room, whilst Kathleen burst into tears, and declared passionately that she would rather die than live in such a hole.

"Never mind, Kathleen," said Molly, bravely; "the room is dirty now, but it can be made clean. You go to rehearsal as usual, and I'll ask Mrs. Jones to lend me a broom, and see if I can't make the place look a little tidier by the time you come back."

"You, Molly! As if you could clean the room!" cried Kathleen. "It's a strong woman's work to make this place decent. Mrs. Jones ought to do it for us, but I suppose it's no use asking her. She's a horrid woman, and I hate her."

"There's a many worse than she," observed Molly.

"Then I hope I may never know them," said Kathleen. "However, I must be off to the theatre, or there'll be no money for us. Isn't it a good thing, Molly, that poor father let me try the dancing? You know he couldn't bear the thought of it, when Miss Evans, the actress, first named it to him. But what would become of us now if I had not this way of earning money?"

"I s'pose there are other ways," said Molly; "you might have got a place as servant somewhere."

"Servant, indeed!" returned Kathleen, with a proud toss of the head. "I think I see myself drudging as a maid-of-all-work. No; I would rather starve than do that! But I really must go, so good-bye. I wish you joy of your sweeping."

Left to herself, Molly could no longer keep back her tears. There was a sore, hopeless feeling at the child's heart.

"Oh, father, father!" she sobbed, as she stood in the middle of the cold, dismal room. "I want you so badly. How can we get on with no one to take care of us, not a single friend to help us?"

Then Molly remembered the words of the street-preacher. "I wish I knew who that great, kind Friend is who loves every one," she said to herself. "Somehow I don't believe He's a real person. If He were, I'd try to find out where He lives, and I'd go and ask Him to take care of Kathleen and me. I told father I would take care of Kathleen, but I'm such a poor little thing, I can't do much for her. However, I'll try if I can't make this place look a little better by the time she comes home."

And drying her tears, Molly set to work without loss of time.

Borrowing a broom of Mrs. Jones, she began to sweep, and soon raised a cloud of dust, which almost choked her.

Fortunately, Mrs. Jones came to the rescue, and showed her how to go to work, and how to scrub the floor when it was swept.

It was hard work for one so small, but Molly kept at it bravely, though her head and back ached, and the tears would fall as she worked. She was bent upon making the room look homelike by the time Kathleen returned.

She would scarcely have succeeded in doing so, however, had she not received unexpected help. She was toiling up the steep staircase about noon, carrying a pail of water almost as big as herself, when a cheery voice from behind cried—

"Here, little 'un, give me that. I reckon I can get it upstairs quicker than you."

And ere she could recover from her surprise, the pail was caught out of her hand, and carried to the top of the house in less than no time. It was Ned Jones, the landlady's son, who did her this good turn. He was a big, stout lad, fast growing into a man, and with a true man's heart beating beneath his fustian jacket.

Molly had often seen him as she went in and out of the house, but she had never spoken to him until this day.

"Oh, thank you!" she cried, as she came up breathless. "That's a nice help."

"So you're moving in here," he said, looking into the room; "you're a little bit of a thing to do such work as this. Is there anything I can do? Ah! Yes. I see that window wants a polish, and you can't possibly reach up to do it. Give me a cloth, and I'll give it a rub."

And he rubbed away with hearty good-will, and soon effected a great improvement in the appearance of the glass.

Then he helped Molly to carry up the bedstead from the room below, and such pieces of furniture as were too heavy for the child to lift alone. It was soon done, for there were not many things to move.

"Upon my word, the little room looks quite cosy now," Ned said, as he went away. "And I can tell you not many of the lodgers' rooms look so clean as you have made this look. You're a rare smart little girl, Molly."

"Who'd have thought he'd have been so kind?" said Molly, when he had gone. "I did not think there was any one so nice in the house. Really, he seems quite like a friend now."

Kathleen, on her return, was much surprised to see the change in the room.

"You 'are' a good little thing, Molly," she said. "However did you manage it?"

Then Molly told the story of her morning's work, and the help Ned had given her.

"I'm very glad you got it all done before I came back," said Kathleen, "for I am dreadfully tired and hungry. Is there nothing but dry bread for dinner?"

"I've got a little bit of butter for you," said Molly; "it's all there is left, and there's no money for any more. No! Don't give me any!" she cried, as her sister offered to halve it. "I would just as soon eat the bread without."

And she turned her eyes away from the butter, and cheerfully munched her dry crust.

"You do love me a little, don't you, Kathleen?" she asked presently, laying her hand softly on her sister's arm.

"Oh yes, Molly, of course," responded Kathleen, with some impatience, as she shook off her sister's hand; "you're my sister, you know, though no one would think so to look at us. We're not a bit alike."

"Oh no! We're not a bit alike!" echoed Molly, with a sigh. "Father often used to tell me so. Poor father! He was 'very' fond of you, Kathleen."

"Yes, he was," replied Kathleen, tears coming into her beautiful dark eyes. "Poor father! How shall we get on without him?"

"I wonder if father's brother Tom will ever come back to England," said little Molly; "if he did, he might take care of us."

"If he could find us," returned Kathleen; "you forget that father had heard nothing of him for years. Uncle Tom may be dead, for aught we know. But if he is alive, and ever comes back to this country, he won't know where to look for us, for we have moved from one place to another since father wrote to him. He would not think of looking for us in this wretched little street."

"No more he would," said Molly; "I did not think of that. Father said that he was making his fortune in Australia, so he would be quite a rich man, I suppose."

"Then I wish he would come back and somehow manage to find us," remarked Kathleen. "Oh, how nice it would be to be rich!"

"Do you remember mother, Kathleen?" Molly asked, after they had been silent a few minutes.

"How often you ask me that question!" returned Kathleen. "I've told you ever so many times that I have just a faint recollection of sitting on her lap when I was a little girl. I don't know whether I really remember it, or whether father told it to me."

"And she used to brush your hair, and curl it round her finger, and kiss you, and call you 'little Kathie?'" said Molly.

"Yes—there, you see, you know it already, so you need not have asked me."

"Do you think mother would ever have done so to me if she had lived?" asked little Molly, with tears in her eyes.

"Oh yes, I daresay," answered Kathleen carelessly; "only you know your hair would never curl like mine."

"No; and besides I am so ugly, and my back is all crooked," sighed Molly. "No, she could never have loved me as she loved you."

Apparently Kathleen was of the same opinion, for she did not attempt to deny the statement. Having finished her dinner, she sprang up from her chair and began to practise some dancing steps on the newly-scrubbed floor, humming a lively air the while. The action jarred on Molly's sorrowful mood. She wondered that Kathleen could dance and hum so gaily on the day following that on which their father had been buried.

In the evening, when Kathleen got ready to go to the theatre, Molly also put on her hat and cloak. During her father's illness she had always walked with her sister to the theatre, and gone later to fetch her home, and she meant to do so still.

But Kathleen raised an objection. "There's no need for you to come, Molly," she exclaimed. "I am best alone. It's absurd for a little thing like you to come out at night to keep me company."

"But father wished me to go," said Molly, "and I promised him I would always take care of you."

"'You' take care of 'me!'" cried Kathleen, scornfully. "What a ridiculous ideal! You forget I'm some years older than you. It's my place to take care of 'you,' I rather think."

"I must go, Kathleen; I promised father," persisted Molly.

"Father never meant that you were to go always," declared Kathleen; "and I don't mean to let you. It's not right for a little thing like you to be out alone in the streets by night. There's no knowing what might happen."

"No one will take any notice of me," urged Molly; "it's quite safe. I'm not like you, Kathleen."

In spite of her strong wish to the contrary, Kathleen was forced to give in, and let Molly have her way. Every evening the little girl walked beside her sister to the theatre, then returned home to spend some dreary hours in darkness and solitude, till the time came for her to go back for Kathleen. Then she made her way rapidly along the quietest streets to the theatre, and waited in some shadowed corner till her sister appeared. Seldom did any one notice the child as she slid along through the darkness or stood beneath a doorway, and such as chanced to glance at her saw something in the look of the weird, wan face and sad dark eyes, which deterred them from offering her annoyance.