When they were fairly seated in the carriage, and there was no longer
any danger of her prisoner attempting to escape, Lucy thought of the
something Poppie had given her, at which she had not even looked, so
anxious was she to secure her bird. When she saw it, she comprehended
it at once--the sign of love, the appeal of a half-savage sister to
one of her own kind, in whom she dimly recognized her far-off ideal;
even then not seeking love from the higher, only tendering the richest
human gift, simple love, unsought, unbought. Thus a fragment dropped by
some glazier as he went to mend the glass door leading into a garden,
and picked out of the gutter by a beggar girl, who had never yet
thought whether she had had a father or a mother, became in that same
girl's hands a something which the Lord himself, however some of his
interpreters might be shocked at the statement, would have recognized
as partaking of the character of his own eucharist. And as such, though
without thinking of it after that fashion, it was received by the
beautiful lady. The tears came into her eyes. Poppie thought she half
offended or disappointed her, and looked very grave. Lucy saw she had
misunderstood her. There was no one in the carriage with them. She
stooped and kissed her. Then the same tears came, almost for the first
time since she had been an infant, into Poppie's eyes. But just then
the train moved off, and although the child by no remark and no motion
evinced astonishment any more than fear, she watched everything with
the intensity of an animal which in new circumstances cannot afford
to lose one moment of circumspection, seeing a true knowledge of the
whole may be indispensable to the retention of its liberty; and before
they reached King's Cross, her eyes were clear, and only a channel on
each cheek, ending in a little mud-bank, showed that just two tears
had flowed half way down her cheeks and dried there undisturbed in the
absorption of her interest.
Before they reached Baker Street station, Lucy had begun to be anxious
as to how she should get her charge through the streets. But no sooner
were they upon the stairs, than Lucy perceived by the way in which
Poppie walked, and the way in which she now and then looked up at her,
that there was no longer any likelihood that she would run away from
her. When they reached the top, she took her by the hand, and, without
showing the slightest inclination to bolt, Poppie trotted alongside
of her to Mrs. Morgenstern's door. Having gained her purpose, Lucy's
weariness had quite left her, and her eyes shone with triumph. They
made a strange couple, that graceful lady and that ragged, bizarre
child, who would, however, have shown herself lovely to any eyes keen
enough to see through the dirt which came and went according to laws as
unknown to Poppie as if it had been a London fog.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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