The cab stopped opposite the entrance of a narrow covered way between two walls of houses. Following this narrow passage, Mrs. Jersey and Dolly emerged into a little court, very small, on one side of which two or three steps led to the American Consul's offices. The first one they entered was full of people, waiting to see the Consul or parleyeing with one or another of the clerks. Dolly left Mrs. Jersey there to wait for her, and herself went on into the inner room, her father's special private office. In those days the office of American Consul was of far more importance and dignity than to-day; and this room was a tolerably comfortable one and respectably furnished.
Here, however, her father was not; and it immediately struck Dolly that he had not been there very lately. How she gathered this impression is less easy to tell, for she could hardly be said to see distinctly any one of the characters in which the fact was written. She did not know that dust lay thick on his writing-table, and that even the papers piled there were brown with it; she did not know that the windows were fastened down this warm day, nor that an arm-chair which usually stood there for the accommodation of visitors was gone, having been slipped into the outer office by an ease-loving clerk. It was a general air of forsakenness, visible in these and in yet slighter signs, which struck Dolly's sense. She stood a moment, bewildered, hoping against sense, as it were; then turned about. As she turned she was met by a young man who had followed her in from the outer office. Dolly faced him.
"Where is Mr. Copley?"
"He ain't here." The Yankee accents of home were unmistakeable.
"I see he is not here; but where is he?"
"Couldn't say, reelly. 'Spect he's to his place. We don't ginerally expect ladies at this time o' day, or I guess he'd ha' ben on hand."
The clerk grinned at Dolly's beauty, the like of which to be sure was not often seen anywhere at that, or any other, time of day.
"When was Mr. Copley here, sir?"
"Couldn't say. 'Tain't very long, nother. Was you wantin' to see him on an a'pintment?"
"No. I am Miss Copley. Where can I find my father? Please tell me as quick as you can."
"Sartain--ef I knowed it. Now I wisht I did! Mr. Copley, he comes and he goes, and he don't tell me which way; and there it is, you see."
"Where is Mr. St. Leger?"
"Mr. Silliger? Don't know the gentleman. Likely Mr. Copley doos. But he ain't here to say. Mebbe it 'ud be a good plan to make a note of it.
That's what Mr. Copley allays says; 'make a note of it.'"
"You do not know, sir, perhaps, whether Mr. Copley is in London?"
"He was in London--'taint very long ago, for he was in this here office, and I see him; but that warn't yesterday, and it warn't the day before. Where he's betaken himself between whiles, ain't known to me.
Shall I make a note, miss, against he comes?"
"No," said Dolly, turning away; "no need. And no use."
She rejoined Mrs. Jersey and they went back to the carriage.
"He is not there," she said excitedly; "and he has not been there for several days. We must go to his lodgings--all the way back almost!"
"Never mind," said the housekeeper. "We have the day before us."
"It is almost twelve," said Dolly, looking at her watch. "Before we get there it will be one. I am a great deal of trouble to you, I fear, Mrs.
Jersey; more than I meant to be."
"My dear, it's no trouble. I am happy to be of any use to you. What sort of a chain is that you wear, Miss Dolly?"
"Curious, isn't it?" said Dolly. "It was given me long ago. It is woven of threads of a ship cable."
"It is a beautiful chain," said her friend, examining it admiringly.
"But that is very clever, Miss Dolly! I should never fancy it was a piece of cable. Is there an anchor anywhere?"
"No," said Dolly, laughing. "Though I am not sure," she added thoughtfully. "My memory goes back along this chain a great way;--back to the time when I was a little girl, quite little, and very happy at school and with a dear aunt, whom I lived with then. And back there at the end of the chain are all those pleasant images; and one most beautiful day, when we went to visit a ship; a great man-of-war. A most beautiful day!" Dolly repeated with the accent of loving recollection.
"And you brought back a piece of cable from the ship, and braided this?"
"No. Oh no! I did not do it; I could not. It was done for me."
"By a friend's fingers?"
"Yes, I suppose you may say so," said Dolly; "though it is a friend I have never seen since then. I suppose I never shall. But I always wear the chain. Oh, how long that seems ago!--Is childhood the happiest time of a person's life, Mrs. Jersey?"
"Maybe I might say yes. Miss Dolly; but if I did, I should mean not what you mean. I should mean the little-child life that one can have when one is old. When the heart says, 'Not my will, but Thine'--when it says, 'Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth.' You know, the Master said, 'Except ye become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.'"
"I don't believe I am just as much of a child, then, as I used to be,"
remarked Dolly.
"Get back to it, my dear, as fast as you can."
"But when one _isn't_ a child, things are so different. It is easy to trust and give up for a child's things; but when one is a woman"----
"It is just the same, dear Miss Dolly! Our great affairs, they are but child's matters to the Lord's eyes. The difference is in ourselves--when our hearts get proud, and our self-will gets up."
"I wish I could be like a child now," said Dolly from the depths of her heart. "I feel as if I were carrying the whole family on my shoulders, and as if _I_ must do it."
"You cannot, my dear! Your shoulders will break. 'Casting your care upon Him,' the Bible says--'for He careth for you.'"
"One does not see Him"---- said Dolly, with her eyes very full.
"Faith can see," the housekeeper returned; and then there was a long silence; while the carriage rattled along over the streets, and threaded its way through the throng of business, or bread-seekers or pleasure-seekers. So many people! Dolly wondered if every one of them carried his secret burden of care, as she was doing; and if they were, she wondered how the world lived on and bore the multitudinous strain.
Oh, to be a child, in the full, blessed sense of the term!
CHAPTER XVI.
A FIGHT.
The cab stopped, and Dolly's heart gave a great thump against her ribs.
What was she afraid of?
Mrs. Jersey said she would wait in the cab, and Dolly applied herself to the door-knocker. A servant came, a stupid one seemingly.
"Is Mr. Copley at home?"
"I dunno."
"Will you find out, please?"
"Jemima, who's that?" called a voice of authority from behind the scenes.
"Somebody arter the gentleman, ma'am. I dunno, is he in his room?"