The Little Princess of Tower Hill

"She has got well again, you know, Ralph, and I promised she should meet me in the country somewhere where the grass is green, and yet I don't know how she's to come. I have got no money, and Jo has got no money, and father and mother don't say any thing about it. It would be a dreadful thing for Jo to stay away from heaven – for she was very, very near going to heaven, Ralph – and then to find that I had broken my word to her, and that after all we were never to see each other where the grass is green."

"It would be worse than dreadful," answered Ralph, "it would be downright cruel and wicked. Dear little Jo! she'd like to come here and look at the bunnies, wouldn't she? Well, I've got no money either, and she can't be got into the country without money; that I do know. Perhaps I'd better speak to mother about it."

But Ralph, when he did question Mrs. Grenville on the subject, found her wonderfully silent, and in his opinion unsympathetic. She said that she could not possibly interfere with Sir John and Lady Ascot in their own place, and that if she were Ralph she would let things alone, and trust to the Ascots doing what was right in the matter.

But Ralph was not inclined to take this advice.

"I like Maggie for being good about Jo," he said, "and Jo shan't be disappointed. I'll go myself to Uncle John; he probably only needs to have the thing put plainly to him."

Sir John listened to the little boy's somewhat excited remarks with an amused twinkle in his eyes.

"So the princess has sent you to me, my lad?" he said. "You tell her to keep her little mind tranquil, and to try to trust her old father."

Little Jo Aylmer came very slowly back to health and strength, but at last there arrived a day when the hospital nurse pronounced her cured, and when her mother arrived in a cab to take her away.

The hospital nurse had tears in her eyes when she kissed Jo, and the other sick children in the ward were extremely sorry to say good-by to her, for little Jo, without making any extraordinary efforts, indeed without making any efforts at all, had a wonderful faculty for inspiring love. No doubt she was sympathetic, and no doubt also she was self-forgetful, and her ready tact prevented her saying the words which might hurt or doing the deeds which might annoy, and these apparently trivial traits in her character may have helped to make her popular. On that particular sunshiny afternoon the preparations made by certain excited little people in Philmer's Buildings were great. From the day Jo was pronounced out of danger Susy had begun to recover her spirits, and at any rate to forgive herself for her conduct in the matter of the tambourine. She had not spent any of the seven shillings which the pawnbroker had given for poor Maggie's best hat; it had all been securely tucked away in her best white cotton pocket-handkerchief, and neither her mother nor the boys knew of its existence, for to purchase a tambourine while Jo was so ill, and Maggie supposed to be dying was beyond even thoughtless Susy's desires.

After her own fashion, this rather heedless little girl had suffered a good deal during the past weeks, and suffering did her good, as it does all other creatures.

Now, while the boys were very busy getting the room into a festive condition for Jo, Susy quietly and softly withdrew one shilling from her mysterious hoard, and went out to make purchases. A shilling means almost nothing to some people; they spend it on utter rubbish – they virtually throw it away. This was, however, by no means the case with Susy Aylmer; she knew a shilling's worth to the uttermost farthing, and it was surprising with what a number of parcels she returned home.

"Now, Ben and Bob, we'll lay the tea-table," she said, addressing her excited little brothers. "Yere, put the cloth straight, do – you know as Jo can't abide nothing crooked. Now then, out comes the fresh loaf as mother bought; pop it on the cracked plate, and put it here, a little to one side – it looks more genteel – not right away in the very middle. Here goes the teapot – oh, my! ain't it a pity as the spout is cracked off? – and here's the little yaller jug for the milk! Here's butter, too – Dosset, but not bad. Now then, we begins on my purchases. A slice of 'am on this tiny plate for Jo; red herrings, which we'll toast up and make piping hot presently; a nice little bundle of radishes, creases ditto. Oh, my heyes! I do like creases, they're so nice and biting. Now then, what 'ave we 'ere? – why, a big packet of lollipops; I got the second quality of lollipops, so I 'as quite a big parcel; and the man threw in two over, 'cause I said they was for a gal just out of 'ospital. Shrimps is in this 'ere bag. Now, boys, there ain't none of these 'ere for you, they're just for mother and Jo, and no one else – don't you be greedy, Ben and Bob, for ef you are, I'll give you something to remember. Yere's a real fresh egg, which must be boiled werry light – that's for Jo, of course – and 'ere's a penn'orth of dandy-o-lions to stick in the middle of the table. Yere they goes into this old brown cracked jug, and don't they look fine? Well, I'm sure I never see'd a more genteel board."

The boys thoroughly agreed with Susy on this point, and while they were skipping and dancing about, and making many dives at the tempting eatables, and Susy was chasing them with loud whoops, half of anger, half of mirth, about the room, Mrs. Aylmer and the little pale, spiritual-looking sister arrived.

At the sight of Jo the children felt their undue excitement subsiding – their happiness became peace, as it always did in her blessed little presence.

There was no wrangling or quarreling over the tea-table – the look of pretty Jo lying on her sofa once again kept the boys from being over-greedy, and reduced Susy's excitement to due bounds.

Mrs. Aylmer said several times, "I'm the werry happiest woman in London," and her children seemed to think that they were the happiest children.

The pleasant tea-hour came, however, to an end at last, and Susy was just washing up the cups and saucers and putting the remainder of the feast into the cupboard, when the whole family were roused into a condition of most alert attention by a sharp and somewhat imperative knock on the room door.

"Dear heart alive!" exclaimed Mrs. Aylmer. "Whoever can that be? It sounds like the landlord, only I paid my bit of rent yesterday."

"It's more likely to be some one after you as laundress, mother," remarked practical Susy; and then Ben flew across the room and, opening the door wide, admitted no less a person than Sir John Ascot himself.

Mrs. Aylmer had never seen him, and of course did not know what an important visitor was now coming into her humble little room. Susy, however, knew Maggie's father, and felt herself turning very white, and took instant refuge behind Jo's sofa.

"Now, which is little Jo?" said Sir John, coming forward and peering round him. "I've come here specially to-day to see a child whom my own little girl loves very much. I've something to say to that child, and also to her mother. My name is Ascot, and I dare say you all, good folks, have heard of my dear little girl Maggie."

"Miss Maggie!" exclaimed Jo, a delicate pink coming into her face, and her sweet violet eyes becoming, not tearful, but misty. "Are you Miss Maggie's father, sir? I seems to be near to Miss Maggie somehow."

"So you are, little lassie," said the baronet; and then he glanced from pretty Jo to the other children, and from her again to her mother, as though he could not quite account for such a fragile and pure little flower among these plants of sturdy and common growth.

"My little Jo favors her father, Sir John," said Mrs. Aylmer, dropping a profound courtesy and dusting a chair with her apron for the baronet. "Will you be pleased to be seated, sir?" she went on. "We're all pleased to see you here – pleased and proud, and that's not saying a word too much. And how is the dear, beautiful little lady, Sir John, and Master Ralph, bless him?"

"My little girl is well again, thank God, Mrs. Aylmer, and Ralph is as sturdy a little chap as any heart could desire. Yes, I will take a seat near Jo, if you please. I've a little plan to propose, which I hope she will like, and which you, Mrs. Aylmer, will also approve of. This is it."

Then Sir John unfolded a deep-laid plot, which threw the Aylmer family into a state of unspeakable rapture. To describe their feelings would be beyond any ordinary pen.