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Norton went into the farmhouse, and the children went hand-in-hand down the garden, looking for Becky and Tiza. Suddenly, as they came close to the cherry-tree, they heard a laugh and a little scuffling, and looking up, what should they see but two little girls perched up on one of the cherry-tree branches, one of them sewing, the other nursing a baby kitten.
Aunt Becky and Gertrude drew up at the Elms, the rector's house, with everything very handsome about them, and two laced footmen, with flambeaux, and went in to see little Lily, on their way to the ball, and to show their dresses, which were very fine, indeed, and to promise to come next day and tell her all the news; for Lily, as I mentioned, was an invalid, and balls and flicflacs were not for her.
"Picking and stealing! Half a meat pie, indeed!" "'T warn't me," wept Becky. "I could 'ave eat a whole un but I never laid a finger on it." Miss Minchin was out of breath between temper and mounting the stairs. The meat pie had been intended for her special late supper. It became apparent that she boxed Becky's ears. "Don't tell falsehoods," she said. "Go to your room this instant."
His godmother, Miss Becky Ap Reece, had died and left him her heir, her property realising a far larger sum than had been expected; indeed, it was surmised that the poor lady must have lost a considerable portion of her income at cards, or she would have been able to live in better style, or have done more good with it than she had done.
As I looked up at the gloomy houses on some quiet street I almost expected to see the funeral hatchment of old Sir Pitt Crawley's wife and Becky Sharp's little pale face peering out, or sweet Ethel Newcomb and her cousin Clive, and the dear old General and Henry Esmond, and etc., etc. And so with Alfred Tennyson.
They had ridden on horseback over the clay roads, they had roamed the stubble with a pack of wiry hounds at their heels, they had gathered Christmas greens, they had sung carols, they had watched the Old Year out and the New Year in, and their souls had been knit in a comradeship which had been a very fine thing indeed for a boy like Randy and a girl like Becky.
Tom rested with her, and they talked of home, and the friends there, and the comfortable beds and, above all, the light! Becky cried, and Tom tried to think of some way of comforting her, but all his encouragements were grown threadbare with use, and sounded like sarcasms. Fatigue bore so heavily upon Becky that she drowsed off to sleep. Tom was grateful.
That he was of a slightly belated temperament will be readily understood when we say that he was at this time just beginning to whistle, with fair correctness, "Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay," to discuss the character of Becky Sharp, to dwell upon the remarkable promise as a vocalist shown by Madame Adelina Patti, and to wonder at the marvellous results said to be accomplished by the telephone.
I can't have him running after Becky." "Seems to me he's been a-runnin'." "But what would Claudia say? I don't know anything about his family. Maybe he hasn't any family. How do I know he isn't a fortune-hunter?" "Well, he isn't a bird hunter, I can tell you that. I saw him kick one of your dogs. A man that will kick a dog isn't fit to hold a gun." "No, he isn't," said the Judge, soberly.
That girl, Becky, would stare in perfect bewilderment if she could know of some of the thoughts and emotions you doubtless attribute to her. She might even laugh at you for your pains." "I do not believe you," I said, not angrily nor resentfully, as might have been earlier in our acquaintance, but with a painful, slow positiveness.
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