98

CHAPTER VII.

THE BAG WITH HOLES.

ON reaching England, I stopped a few days at Mr. Bartlett's, while Miss Rosa watched the advertisements in the newspaper for any place likely to suit me. The first two did not answer, but the third appeared to be the very thing. I was to wait on an old lady, at the Regent's Park, who had not much the matter with her, but she had plenty of money, and needed to have a nurse always in attendance, as she was rather childish, and past taking care of herself. I was to have first-rate wages, with everything found; and was to go the next week. Nothing could have been more to my mind. It looked as though my largest hopes were to come true, and as if I should gather up a little fortune in almost no time. But a long, a very long trial was at hand.

While we were among the canals and the damp flat grounds of Holland, I had not been very well; indeed at Amsterdam I could hardly hold up my head. The change of air in going to Brussels, and then coming home, had driven away the bad thought of them no more.

feelings, and I But in coming

down the river from Antwerp, we had again passed by the shores of Holland; and whether stayed on deck too late that night, or what it was, I cannot say ;-all I know is, that though for about a week I was quite hearty, a strange feeling of illness all at once came over me, and I had to keep my bed. I had gone home by that time, for I wished to be a few days with father and mother, and tell them all about my journey: it was in Britannia Street they lived at that time. I did not send to let Miss Rosa know, as I thought it would soon pass away, and I did not like to trouble her. So she never found out till long afterwards that I had not gone to the place where I had engaged myself. Mother fetched a doctor to me; and as soon as he had asked me a few questions, he looked puzzled at first, but then he said, "Have you been out of England lately?" I had always thought doctors were mighty knowing, but this passed all I ever heard of before. When I said "Yes," he asked where I had been. I told him. "Ah!" he answered; "then that explains everything! This is the Walcheren fever you have got. I thought it was amazingly like it, but I was wondering how you could possibly have taken it. I will order you some medicine directly," So he wrote a paper, and sent my little nephew (an orphan child of my eldest brother's, whom mother had taken to live with them at home) to get it made up; and then, as he was a

chatty little man, the doctor went on to tell us that Walcheren is a large island belonging to the Dutch, and situated at the mouth of the river along which we had come in the steamboat; and that the English army, when they were fighting in that part, suffered very much from this fever. 66 But," he said, as you are safe out of that low damp place, I hope we shall bring you round again pretty quickly."

66

The cure did not come so fast as he thought for. I remained weak and low for several months, though I had lots of strengthening medicine. And after that I took a violent cold, and a bad rheumatism. That threw me back, and pulled down the little strength I had been beginning to pick up, beside the pain setting in so on my left arm, that I have never rightly got the full use of it since. I began to think all was over with me, and that I should never be able to make another farthing.

When the summer was come, and my five pounds were due, I had to go and ask Mr. Bartlett to let me have the money, as I was run very short, and did not know when I could go to service again. He and Miss Rosa were quite troubled, and said I ought to have let them hear of all this much sooner. the illness had come on through my being with them, they thought they were bound to help me. It was so kind of them; they chose to take it as a matter of course, and not as a

As

favour. But I was none the less thankful, for I knew it was all pure charity, and that I could not rightly have claimed a single penny from them. It is true that in my second illness-the rheumatism-I got a dispensaryticket from a lady who visited round our way; and this was a great help. But the doctor's bills, when I had the fever, had been very heavy, though I believe he charged as low as he well could, and was content to wait (he said) till I could afford to pay. With what I got from the Bartletts, I was able to clear my score, and had of my own about four pounds left. This was what I had to live on, till I found something to do.

A weary while I had to wait; and I had many a long mile to trudge in vain. Every lady I spoke to had some sort of objection. Some thought me too old; some said I looked sickly; others wanted a person strong in both arms, to lift an invalid; many did not choose to give the wages I had been used to, and I was not yet minded to go for less, as I still hoped something better might turn up. At last I became very sad at heart. I did not forget that God orders all things by His providence; but I remembered it only to murmur against His will. I thought I was harshly and unfairly treated! I laid all the blame on God, and took none to myself.

It happened one day, while I was in this discontented state of mind-on a Friday it

was-I was returning home after another fruitless search, and coming down the rough ground between Soley Terrace and the Bagnigge Wells Road. It is all built over there now, and was laid out, as if for building, at that time, though I recollect when it was all garden-ground with rose-bushes. As I was going down this hill, whom should I meet but a lady, whose face I felt sure I knew. I looked again; there was no mistaking her; it was Miss Charlotte herself. She did not know me at first-how should she? I was so grown and so aged. She was shocked at my pale thin cheeks, and said, "I am sure you have been ill, and in sorrow too will you come up to-morrow morning, and see me, and tell me all about it? come as early as ten," she said, or a little earlier, for at half-past I am going out for the day." She told me where she and her father had taken lodgings in Holloway; her mother had died in France, before they came back to this country.

66

On the Saturday morning I set off in good time, but through trying to go by a short cut that mother told me of, and then losing myself by reason of the changes that had been going on all about the Liverpool Road since I had last gone that way, I wandered ever so far out of my road. I was but just in time to see Miss Charlotte, and tell her my long tale in as few words as I could. She slipped halfa-crown into my hand, and said she wished