Rich Man, Poor Man. Foster Maximilian
"Diamonds and pearls! Diamonds and pearls! You'll wear 'em yet, you wait!"
But Bab Wynne was of a far more practical turn of mind.
"Did you bring me my licorice stick?" she demanded.
It was Mr. Mapleson who had first taught Bab her letters. Step by step he brought her up until it was time to send Bab to a school. Then, the school having been selected, with the child's hand in his Mr. Mapleson walked there with her every morning. At night, too, it was Mr. Mapleson who always heard her lessons. "Spell cat," Mr. Mapleson would say; and when Bab, after deep thought, announced that c-a-t spelled cat, Mr. Mapleson would exclaim: "Very good! Very good!" and, laying down the spelling book, would pick up the reader. "Read, please," he would direct; and the little girl, bending earnestly over her book, would display to the man's breathless interest that wonderful evidence of the Creation, the marvel of a child's growing mind. "Oh, see the ox! Is the ox kind? Yes, the ox is kind."
Mr. Mapleson would be enthralled.
"Diamonds and pearls!" he'd say. "Diamonds and pearls!"
There are times, though, one fears, when Bab Wynne, with the spirit that betokens the dawning of a character, was not just so earnest, so tractable. Pouting, she'd mumble: "Don't know how to spell cat!" or, "No, I don't see the old ox!"
Mr. Mapleson would slowly shake his head.
"If you won't read and won't spell, Bab," he'd say, "how can you hope ever to grow up a lady—a fine lady?"
"Don't want to be a fine lady!" Bab would answer.
Usually after this was a little silence. Then Mr. Mapleson would hold out both his hands to her.
"D'you want to break Mr. Mapy's heart?" he'd ask.
That always fetched her. And thus had passed the years, one by one drifting by. Bab had just turned twenty, and Mr. Mapleson's promise had come true. "Diamonds and pearls! Diamonds and pearls!" he'd told her. They were to be hers now. Bab Wynne at last had found her people!
She still lay with her brown head buried among the pillows; and Mr. Mapleson, his eyes gleaming like a bird's, bent above her, quivering, his slender hand gently touching her on the cheek.
"Why, Babbie!"
She looked up suddenly, her eyes suffused.
"Oh, Mr. Mapy!" she whispered. "Is it true? Is it true?"
He had left the door open, and had one looked closely it would have been seen in the light from outside that Mr. Mapleson started first, and that then the color fled swiftly from his face.
"What do you mean?" he whispered; and rising from the pillow Bab bent closer to him, her face rapt, her lips parting with excitement.
"I mean about me," she answered, her breast heaving gently—"about everything! Last night you were talking and I heard—I couldn't help listening! You were telling about the Beestons—about them—about me! Oh, Mr. Mapy, is it true?"
Mr. Mapleson stared at her, his face like clay. He was shaking too. Then he spoke, and his voice when she heard it was thick and harshly broken. One would hardly have known it for his.
"Yes," said Mr. Mapleson, and quivered; "it's true! You're old man Beeston's granddaughter. Your father was his son." And then Mr. Mapleson said a very curious thing. "Yes—God help me!" he croaked.
Belowstairs all Mrs. Tilney's boarders sat at dinner, and in the room lit dimly by the single gas jet the two were quite alone—the white-faced, white-haired, faded little old man; the girl, youthful, lovely, alluring. But alone though they were, the whole world at that instant might have whirled about them, roaring, yet neither would have heard it.
Bab presently spoke.
"You mean," she said slowly, wondering—"you mean that I'm theirs? That they are coming to take me?"
Mr. Mapleson said, "Yes."
"And I'm to have everything now, really everything?" she asked. "You mean I'm to have pretty clothes? To go everywhere? To know everyone they know?"
It was so; and his face convulsed, his mouth working queerly, Mr. Mapleson fell to nodding now like a mandarin on a mantelpiece.
"Yes, yes—everything!"
Again he bent over her, his expression once more rapt, once more transfigured.
"Yes, and you can marry. You understand, don't you?" said Mr. Mapleson, his voice eager, clear. "You can marry anyone. You understand—anyone?"
Then with a sudden gesture he held out his slender, pipelike arms; and Bab, her face suffused, crept into them. For a moment Mr. Mapleson patted the head hidden on his shoulder.
"You are happy, then?" he asked.
"Oh, Mr. Mapy! Mr. Mapy!" she whispered.
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