CHAPTER XXXII.

JESSIE MAKES AN EXPLANATION.

Jessie walked straight into the parlour, where both uncle Bryan and my mother were sitting.

'You are anxious to know,' she said, addressing my mother, 'where I go to of a morning.'

'Yes, my dear,' answered my mother.

I saw that uncle Bryan was listening, and I saw also by the expression in his face that the matter was new to him; my mother had not complained to him of Jessie.

'Chris has been speaking to me about it,' said Jessie, 'and I thought it best to tell you myself. I go to Mr. Rackstraw's.'

'Who is he, my dear?' asked my mother.

'He is a gentleman who teaches young ladies--I beg your pardon'--(with the slightest possible glance at uncle Bryan)--'young women how to act; he educates them for the stage.'

'But surely, my dear,' remonstrated my mother, 'you have no intention of becoming an actress.'

'Why not? I am not wise, I know, and I am very wilful, and passionate, and unreasonable.' She resolutely moved a step from my mother, who was approaching her tenderly. 'But I have sense enough to think of my future, and I do not see what I could do better. I have been acting for a long time at Miss West's; we have often had little private performances there--Chris has seen them.' There was grief, but no reproach, in my mother's eyes as she looked at me. 'When I first commenced to act, I did it purely out of fun, and I had no serious intention of taking to the stage; but when I grew so unhappy here as to know that I was bringing discord among those who loved each other, and to whom I was in a certain sense a stranger, and when day after day the feeling grew stronger that I was not welcome in this house, I thought of what was before me in the future. It must be very sweet, I think, to be dependent upon those who love you; it is very bitter, I know, to be dependent upon those who hate you.'

'Stop!' cried uncle Bryan, in an agitated tone. 'I say nothing as to whether you are right or wrong in your construction of the feelings entertained towards you here. You are a woman in your ideas, although almost a child in years, and you have evidently settled with yourself that you will not be led----'

'Who is to lead me?' said Jessie, pale and trembling. 'I have asked to be led, and _you_ know the result. Not quite out of hard-heartedness, but with some shadow of good feeling--though perhaps you will not give me credit for being capable of anything of the sort--I have asked to be shown what is right and what is wrong; and if I, somewhat wilfully, preferred to be shown by example and not by words, was I so very much to blame, after all?'

'You are clever enough,' he said, 'to twist things into the shape you like best----'

'No,' she exclaimed, interrupting him again; 'be just. You know what I refer to, and you know I have spoken exactly the truth. Do not say I have misrepresented it.'

'I beg your pardon,' he said, in a manly tone, and with a frankness which compelled admiration. I was wrong. You have stated exactly the truth, and in a truthful way. But if you really wished to be taught, what better teacher could you have than the one before you?'--with a motion of his hand towards my mother--'if you had doubts, where could you find a better counsellor?'

'You are master,' said Jessie, firmly and gently; 'you gave me shelter and protection. Chris reminded me of that a little while ago when we were speaking of you, and I was angry with him for it--unreasonably angry. It is not to be wondered at that I should look to you for counsel.'

'If there were two roads before you,' he said, 'one, dark and bleak and bare'--he touched his breast'--the other, fair and bright and sweetened by most unselfish tenderness'--he laid his hand upon the hand of my mother--'which would you choose?'

'I cannot answer you; you are wiser than I am, but I do not think you can see my heart.'

'I see,' he said, with a glance at my mother's white face, 'things which you do not seem to comprehend.'

'The time may come,' she retorted, 'when you will be more just towards me, and I must wait until then.'

'Well, well,' he said, with a sigh; 'you say it is bitter to be dependent upon those who hate you. Leave me out of the question. My sister loves you; Chris loves you. Can you not be content with this, and let me go my way?'

'No; for I have been dependent upon you, not upon them.'

'Have I ever said a word which led you to believe I begrudged you shelter here?'

'Never; but we do not judge always by words.'

She seemed to have caught uncle Bryan's talent for short crisp sentences, in which there was much truth.

'Go on with your explanation,' he said.

She turned to my mother.

'You saw me yesterday in a cab with a gentleman. His name is Mr. Glover, and he is a friend of Mr. Rackstraw. He offered to see me home, and wanted to come to the door with me, but I thought uncle Bryan would not approve of it.'

'I should not have approved of it,' said uncle Bryan, 'and I do not approve of any person seeing you home in a clandestine way.'

'And, my dear child,' added my mother, 'he is a stranger to us, and must be almost a stranger to you.'

'He is a gentleman,' said Jessie.

'A gentleman!' repeated uncle Bryan scornfully.

'That is nothing against him. I like gentlemen. Mr. Rackstraw tells me that Mr. Glover can help me to get an engagement on the stage, and I must consider that. He treats me with the greatest respect.'

'Who pays this Mr. Rackstraw,' asked uncle Bryan, 'for the lessons he gives you? His business is not entirely philanthropic, I presume, and he does not teach young ladies for nothing.'

'Of course I have no money to pay him; I am to pay him by and by, out of any money I may earn.'

'You are determined, then, to become an actress?'

'I am determined to get my own living, and I believe I shall do well on the stage. I cannot continue to live in a state of dependence. If I had a mother or a father, or if I were happy here, it would be different.'

'I suppose you can be made happy,' said uncle Bryan, 'by being indulged in all your whims and caprices, and by being allowed to act and think exactly as you please, without restraint.'

'No,' replied Jessie tearfully, 'I only want kindness; I cannot live without it.'

She turned to leave the room, with signs of agitation on her face, when uncle Bryan desired her to stay.

'There is something more,' he said. 'In the event of this gentleman--Mr. Glover--seeing you home again, he must not do so clandestinely. I owe a duty to you which I must perform, however distasteful it may be to you.'

'It is not distasteful to me,' she replied. 'Mr. Glover would have seen me to the door yesterday but for my refusal to allow him. I am truly anxious to do what is right.'

My uneasiness with respect to this discovery would have been unbearable but for a change in my circumstances which placed the day more at my own disposal. I had advanced steadily in my trade, and was by this time a thoroughly good engraver. I think I brought into my work more than mere mechanical exactness, and some blocks of my engraving which went out of Mr. Eden's office attracted meritorious attention. I knew of men who were earning good wages--far higher than I was receiving--by taking work from master engravers, and executing it at home. Why could I not do the same? I should not then be so tied down as not to have an hour or two in the middle of the day to myself; and in the event of my availing myself of the opportunity, I could easily make up for lost time by working an hour or two later in the night. I mentioned this to Jessie, and said that then I could come to Mr. Rackstraw's, and bring her home of an afternoon--instead of Mr. Glover, I added.

'I would sooner,' said Jessie, 'that you saw me home than Mr. Glover. I believe you are jealous of him, you foolish boy! You have no occasion to be.'

Such a crumb of comfort as this would console me for days.

'And then I shall be my own master,' I said to myself proudly.

My employer anticipated my wish; he was a generous conscientious man, and I had earned his respect. He called me into his office, and, almost in the exact words I have set down, proposed that I should do as I wished.

'You will not only be able to earn more money,' he said, but in a few years you may be able yourself to set up as a master, and take apprentices of your own. I shall be able to give you plenty of work, and you will find that your time will be as fully occupied as you can desire it to be. Let me give you one piece of advice: never promise what you cannot perform; if you say you will deliver a block at a certain time, keep your word, if you have to sit up all night to finish your work. Let it get to be known that you are a man whose word can be depended upon, and you are sure to be prosperous.'

I thanked him, and commenced almost immediately on the new system, with my hands full of work. So behold me now, with my bedroom, in which there was a good light, fitted up with table and bench, working steadily at home, to my mother's great delight.