Transcriber's note: Unusual and inconsistent spelling is as printed. [Illustration: A BUNCH OF FLOWERS FOR MELINA.] THE LITTLE GENTLEMAN BY ELEANORA H. STOOKE AUTHOR OF "COUSIN BECKY'S CHAMPIONS," "ROBIN OF SUN COURT," "GRANFER AND ONE CHRISTMAS TIME," ETC. WITH FRONTISPIECE BY E. R. MARQUAND LONDON NATIONAL SOCIETY'S DEPOSITORY 19 GREAT PETER STREET, WESTMINSTER, S.W. NEW YORK: THOMAS WHITTAKER, 2 & 3 BIBLE HOUSE 1910 (All rights reserved) CONTENTS CHAPTER I. MELINA MAKES A FRIEND II. MELINA AT HOME III. MRS. BERRYMAN's HOARD IV. GOING TO SUNDAY SCHOOL V. MRS. BROWN'S INVITATION VI. GOING OUT TO TEA VII. LOCKED IN VIII. GOOD FRIDAY EVENING IX. ANTICIPATING THE BANK HOLIDAY X. AN EVENTFUL DAY XI. THE FIRE XII. GOOD-BYES THE LITTLE GENTLEMAN CHAPTER I MELINA MAKES A FRIEND "HULLOA, Melina, where are you going? How is it you aren't at school? You'd best look out or your Granny'll get the attendance officer around her again about you, and then she'll give you what you won't like!" The scene was the corner of Jubilee Terrace, a row of small red-brick cottages on the outskirts of Hawstock, a large provincial west of England town, on a cold January morning; and the speaker—William Jones—was a tall, well-grown boy of about twelve years of age, comfortably clad, who had that minute emerged from one of the cottages and encountered an ill-tempered-looking little girl, a year or so his junior, to whom he had addressed himself. "D' you think I'm afraid of the attendance officer?" demanded the little girl, who was called Melina Berryman. She spoke in a high, shrill voice, the voice of a scold, and her manner was argumentative. "And I ain't afraid of Gran either, so there!" she added. The boy laughed unbelievingly, whilst his blue eyes twinkled with amusement as they travelled over his companion from the crown of her battered hat, decorated with a draggled plume of cocks' feathers, to the tips of her toes, which had worn through her stockings and were peeping out of her shabby boots. He was not really an unkind boy; but Melina Berryman was the butt of all the children who lived in Jubilee Terrace, and he found considerable amusement in teasing her. It was such fun to bait her into an ungovernable passion, to see her thin white countenance distorted with anger and her big eyes flash, and to listen to the volley of abuse which would flow so glibly from her lips when, facing her tormentor, she would look for all the world like a little wild animal, with her lips drawn back from her gleaming white teeth, and her shock of tousled hair. "I ain't afraid of Gran either," she repeated, and she nodded her head knowingly; "she can't wollop me now." Her tone was triumphant.