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Mell's old flute seemed more than once to sound mournfully in my ears; and that when at last Steerforth was tired, and I lay down in my bed, I fancied it playing so sorrowfully somewhere, that I was quite wretched. The new master came from a grammar school; and before he entered on his duties, dined in the parlour one day, to be introduced to Steerforth.
Mell's tears broke forth afresh. What a horrid boy! The pond was very near now. It was a large pond. There were hills on one side of it; on the other the shore was low, and covered with thick bushes. In and out among these bushes went Mell, hunting for her lost flock. It was green and shady.
This did not sweeten her temper, for in case he never returned, Mell's would be another back to clothe, another mouth to fill, when food, perhaps, would not be easily come by. Mell was not anxious about her father. She was used to having him absent. In fact, she seldom thought of him one way or another. If Mrs.
Mell's departure; and went back to his sofa, or his bed, or wherever he had come from. We were left to ourselves now, and looked very blank, I recollect, on one another.
"There you are again, peeping, peeping," she would cry, and drive Mell before her downstairs. So this evening, after the burning of the book, Mell's sore and angry fancies flew as usual to the chest. "It's so big," she thought, "that all the children could get into it. I'll play that a wicked enchanter came and flew away with mother, and never let her come back.
Mell had never seen the lid raised since, but every day she had played about the big chest and its contents. Sometimes she played that the chest belonged to the beautiful Princess, and was full of her clothes and jewels. Sometimes a fairy lived there, who popped out, wand in hand, and made things over to Mell's liking.
Give you a silly book to read, and the children might perish before your eyes for all you'd notice. Look at Isaphine, and Gabella Sarah. Little lambs, as likely as not they've taken their deaths. It shan't happen again, though. Give me that book " And, snatching Mell's treasure from her hands, Mrs. Davis flung it into the fire.
Davis, who was sitting down to supper in the kitchen with somebody just arrived, a big, brown, rough-bearded somebody, who smelt of salt-water; Mell's father, in short, returned from sea. "What's that?" asked Captain Davis, putting down his cup. Mrs. Davis was frightened. In the excitement of her husband's sudden return she had quite forgotten poor Mell in her closet.
"I punish my own children," she would say, "not other people's." "Other people's children" meant poor Mell. It was not a very happy home, this of the Davis's. Mell's father was captain of a whaler, and almost always at sea. It was three years now since he sailed on his last voyage. No word had come from him for a great many months, and his wife was growing anxious.
Every now and then Mell had to let them sit down to rest. It was nearly four o'clock when they reached home; and, long before that, Mell was so weary and discouraged that it seemed as if she should like to lie down and die. They got home at last. Mell's hand was on the garden gate, when suddenly a sight so terrible met her eyes that she stood rooted to the spot, unable to move an inch further.
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