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Thinking thus, and rubbing it meanwhile, she noticed for the first time that there were two letters faintly scratched on the wooden sole, "BM." Who was BM? "Perhaps that's my name," she thought; "but I don't want to know it if it is. I'd rather be Mary Vallance." And then the dark faces of Perrin and Seraminta came before her and she frowned. How hateful it was to belong to them!
But none of Jackie's earnest appeals to "try hard" produced any results, for all that part of her life was wiped as clean out of her memory as when one washes marks off a slate with a sponge. It was all gone, and when she looked back it was not Seraminta and Perrin and the donkey-cart she saw, but the kind faces of Mr and Mrs Vallance and her happy, pleasant home at the vicarage.
Presently, however, it was found that Mary had strange and dreadful experiences to relate. A silence fell upon the others until she had finished, and then they looked at her with a sort of awe. "So our chickens won't be stolen," she repeated, "and that dreadful Seraminta can't take me away."
"Wouldn't yer like to come back to pore Seraminta, yer own mother, what brought yer up and took care on yer?" the woman said in coaxing tones, "an to father Perrin, and dear brother Bennie." "No no no," sobbed Mary, "I must go home."
In no time the friendly little clog, with its glistening clasp and bright toe, was gone, and in its place there was an ugly broken-out boot which had once belonged to Bennie. Her work done, Seraminta put the child on the ground and gave her a hard crust to play with. Baby immediately threw it from her with all her strength, cast herself flat on her face, and shrieked with anger and distress.
Crouched on the ground, with his nose between his paws, he kept a watchful eye on Seraminta, who was busying herself with the child. She was going to make her "so as her own mother wouldn't know her."
"Well, now," said the woman, with a side wink to the two men, "suppose we was to go agen our nateral feelin's and let you go back, what would you promise to do in return?" "Anything I'll do anything," said Mary, checking her tears and looking up with a gleam of hope. "Then, look you here," said Seraminta, changing her soft tone to a threatening one, and frowning darkly.
From that day "Mossy," as she called the dog, was added to the number of baby's friends the other two were Bennie and the little clog. To this last she confided, in language of her own, much that no one else understood, and Seraminta did not again attempt to take it from her.
She've the sperrit of a duchess an' as 'orty in her ways as a queen. She'll never be no good to us in our line o' bizness, an' I'm not agoin' to keep her." They wrangled and quarrelled over the subject continually, for Seraminta, partly from obstinacy, and partly because the child was so handsome, wished to keep her, and teach her to perform with the poodle in the streets.
An' it's Seraminta as tells you so." "I won't," said Mary, "if you'll only let me go." "It goes agen me," said Seraminta, pretending to hesitate, "it naterally goes agen me. But I dessay you'll be better off at the parson's than yer could be with yer pore mother. Don't forgit the money. Now count fifty, an' then take off the handkercher."
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