Pickwick Abroad: A Companion to the Pickwick Papers — page 328: what you’re looking at

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A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 79 from Hampshire, whose business it was, among other duties, to knock at Miss Sharp’s door with that jug of hot water, which Firkin would rather have perished than have pre- sented to the intruder. This girl, bred on the family estate, had a brother in Captain Crawley’s troop, and if the truth were known, I dare say it would come out that she was aware of certain arrangements, which have a great deal to do with this his- tory. At any rate, she purchased a yellow shawl, a pair of green boots, and a light blue hat with a red feather, with three guineas which Rebecca gave her, and as little Sharp was by no means too liberal with her money, no doubt it was for services rendered that Betty Martin was so bribed. On the second day after Sir Pitt Craw- ley’s offer to Miss Sharp, the sun rose as usual, and at the usual hour Betty Martin, the up-stairs maid, knocked at the door of the governess’s bed-chamber. No answer was returned, and she knocked again. Silence was still uninterrupted ; and Betty, with the hot water, opened the door and entered the chamber. The little white dimity bed was as smooth and trim as on the day previous when Bet- ty’s own hands had helped to make it. ‘I'wo little trunks were corded in one end of the room; and on the table before the window —on the pincushion—the great fat pincush- ion lined with pink inside, and frilled like a lady’s nightcap—lay a letter. It had been reposing there probably all night. Betty advanced toward it on tiptoe, as if she were afraid to awake it—looked at it, and round the room with an air of great wonder and satisfaction, took up the letter, and grinned intensely as she turned it round and over, and finally carried it into Miss Briggs’s room below. How could Betty tell that the letter was for Miss Briggs, I should like to know? All the schooling Betty had was at Mrs. Bute Crawley’s Sunday school, and she could no more read writing than Hebrew. “La, Miss Briggs,’ the girl exclaimed, ‘OQ, Miss, something must have happened —there’s nobody in Miss Sharp’s room; the bed aint been slep in, and she’ve run away, and left this letter for you, Miss.” ‘ What!” cries Briggs, dropping her comb, the thin wisp of faded hair falling over her shoulders; ‘‘an elopement! Miss Sharp a fugitive! What, what is this!” and she eagerly broke the neat seal, and, as they say, ‘devoured the contents” of the letter addressed to her. ‘Dear Miss Briees,” the refugee wrote, ‘‘the kindest heart in the world as yours is, will pity and sympathize with me and excuse me. With tears, and prayers, and blessings, I leave the home where the poor orphan has ever met with kindness and affection. Claims even superior to those of my bene- factress call me hence. I go to my duty— to my husband. Yes, Iam married. My husband commands me to seek the humble home which we call ours. Dearest Miss Briggs, break the news as your delicate sympathy will know how to do it—to my dear, my beloved friend and benefactress. Tell her, ere I went, I shed tears on her dear pillow—that pillow that I have so often soothed in sickness—that I long again to watch—Oh, with what joy shall I return to dear Park Lane! How I tremble for the answer which is to seal my fate! When Sir Pitt deigned to offer me his hand, an honor of which my beloved Miss Crawley said I was deserving (my blessings go with her for judging the poor orphan worthy to be her sister/), I told Sir Pitt that I was already a wife. Even he forgave me. But my courage failed me, when [| ‘should have told him all—that I could not be his wife, for I was his daughter! I am wedded to the best and most generous of men—Miss Craw- ley’s Rawdon is my Rawdon. At his com- mand I open my lips, and follow him to our humble home, as I would through the world. O, my excellent and kind friend, intercede with my Rawdon’s beloved aunt for him and the poor girl to whom all his noble race have shown such unparalleled affection. Ask Miss Crawley to receive her children. I can say no more, but. blessings, blessings on all in the dear house I leave, prays ‘Your affectionate and grateful, ‘* RepeccA CRAWLEY. ** Midnight.” Just as Briggs had finished reading this affecting and interesting document, which reinstated her in her position as first confi- dante of Miss Crawley, Mrs. Firkin entered the room. ‘Here’s Mrs. Bute Crawley just arrived by the mail from Hampshire, and wants some tea; will you come down and make breakfast, miss ?”’ And to the surprise of Firkin, clasping her dressing-gown around her, the wisp of hair floating disheveled behind her, the little curl-papers still sticking in bunches round her forehead, Briggs sailed down to Mrs. Bute with the letter in her hand containing the wonderful news. “Oh, Mrs. Firkin,” gasped Betty, ‘ sech a business. Miss Sharp have a gone and run away with the capting, and they’re off to Gretny Green!” We would devote a chapter to describe the emotions’of Mrs. Firkin, did not the passions of her mistresses occupy our genteeler muse. When Mrs. Bute Crawley, numbed with midnight traveling, and warming herself at the newly crackling parlor fire, heard from Miss Briggs the intelligence of the clandes- tine marriage, she declared it was quite CCOLAN ) NOO|KS.CO