Tuxter's Little Maid

Front matter

UNIFORM WITH THIS WORK. From the Memoirs of a Minister of France. By Stanley Weyman. The Story of Francis Cludde. By Stanley J. Weyman. The Adventures of Captain Horn. By Frank Stockton. The Little Minister. By J. M. Barrie. Kidnapped. By R. L. Stevenson. Catriona : A Sequel to " Kidnapped." By R. L. Stevenson. Island Nights' Entertainments. By Robert Louis Stevenson. The Wrecker. By R. L. Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne. The Sea Wolves. By Max Pemberton. The White Shield. By Bertram Mitford. Tuxter's Little Maid. By G. B. Burgin. The Highway ol Sorrow. By Hesba Stretton and ••*•••*• The Hispaniola Plate. (1683-1893). By John Bloundelle-Burton A Free Lance in a Far Land. By Herbert Compton. The Admirable Lady Biddy Fane. By Frank Barrett. List, ye Landsmen ! By W. Clark Russell. A Prison Princess.

By Major Arthur Griffiths. The New Ohio r a Story of East and West. By Edward E. Hale. Sybil Knox, or Home Again. By Edward E. Hale. CASSELL & COMPANY, L.m.ted, London: Paris &■ Afeloonme. 35— 7-95 BY G. B. BUEGIN AUTHOR OF "HIS LORDSHIP," "THE DANCE AT THE FOUR CORNERS " etc. etc. " Small was the gift I gave her. being poor. But Ut my heart go with it; therefore we Were both made richer by that charity." Carey CASSELL and COMPANY, Limited LONDON, PARIS # MELBOURNE 1895 all rights reserved Co MY FRIEND, The REV R. H. GILES, THIS HOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED. CONTENTS. — &%'a. — rArrr

Chapter I. Mr

TUXTER'S TROUBLES. Just at the back of Brownlow Street, W.C, and running parallel with it, Little Lambton Street is given up to squalid misery and dis reputability in all its varied forms. Most of the once handsome houses are in ruins ; irre sponsible tenants have stripped the doors of panels and locks, the walls of paper; and when ever a lead gutter is conveniently near enough for the purpose, chunks are cut away to provide means for slaking the phenomenal aridity of the frequenters of the public-house at the corner opposite Mrs. Tuxter's shop. " The Stoat and Hammer," large, brilliantly lit, and opposed to doing business except for cash down on the counter, was a sore trouble to Mrs. Tuxter, whose asceticism became more rigid as the public-house proprietor grew fatter. Chance had induced the proprietor of the Little Lambton Street tenements to obtain a license and start " The Stoat and Hammer " immediately opposite Mrs. Tuxter's general grocery and provision store.

It seemed to him that, if Mrs. Tuxter provided food and condiments for the neighbourhood, it was his duty to enable people to slake their thirst, and thus keep as much money as possible from being dissipated outside the confines of Little Lambton Street. He further counted upon a propensity which had grown up among his tenants of late years to drink " bad luck " to Mrs. Tuxter at each other's expense ; for that estimable woman, like a great many other people, declined to allow her religious tendencies to influence the commercial transactions of everyday life, aud displayed a large placard in the shop, which intimated too forcibly to be mistaken that all business trans actions must be conducted on a cash basis : it was the one point in common between her shop and " The Stoat and Hammer." This intimation was not popular ; indeed, it gradually grew to be regarded as a chronic insult and reflection on Mrs. Tuxter's patrons, who would have transferred their custom elsewhere had it not been for the fact that "Tuxter's" was so conveniently situated.

When heads of families did their shopping, they could also unosten tatiously slip into " The Stoat and Hammer," and manage the business of the nation upon those drastic principles so dear to the hearts of the proletarian and proletaneous dwellers in Little Lambton Street. Tuxter himself was not above frequenting " The Stoat and Hammer," to drink confusion to Mrs. Tuxter whenever an appropriate oppor tunity offered. Mrs. Tuxter, however, seldom permitted such a lapse from duty to occur. When it did happen, and she became aware of the fact, her action was decisive. The public-house door would open suddenly, and Mrs. Tuxter's Medusa-like head, surrounded by snaky ringlets, appear in the narrow opening. " You, Tuxter ! " was all she said, but it was quite sufficient. "Comin', my dear, comin'," Tuxter would reply, with a hurried affectation of unconcern.

" I just stepped in " " To peril your immortal soul," with an emphatic glance at the buxom barmaid. " Yes, my dear, to peril my immortual soul," Tuxter would feebly rejoin, well know ing that for days to come the bread and water of affliction must pass his lips till they became purged of the seductive beverage known to the inhabitants of Little Lambton Street as " four 'arf." But in her presence he never dreamed of resistance. Tuxter was an amiable, gentle, kind-hearted man, who loved to steal sweets from the shop for the gutter children, although well aware that detection must come sooner or later, and, with detection, retribution ! In appearance he was red-haired, with clean-shaven upper lip, and a straggling growth of rufous down upon his chin. His blue eyes twinkled with good-nature, and he had an elegant Boman nose of which he was inordi nately proud as a mark of what he somewhat vaguely termed " blood."

His expansive figure scorned the refining waistcoat of civilisation, and his working costume (Tuxter was a carpenter who made coffins) generally consisted of corduroy trousers, hitched up by one sus pender, and a blue flannel shirt. On Sundays Mrs. Tuxter invariably, after a prolonged struggle, made him don glossy black broad cloth, white shirt, collar, and a silk hat, and led him off to the neighbouring Little Bethel, with an air of triumph which provoked ill-concealed derision on the part of her neigh bours. In vain Tuxter pleaded his body was so uncomfortable during the service that he had no time to consider his spiritual welfare. " If you can't be saved in decent black, better not be saved at all," was Mrs. Tuxter's inward reflection. So Tuxter perspired and groaned, and twisted, and was exquisitely uncomfortable Sunday after Sunday, year in and year out, for the inexorable Fates declined to interfere on his behalf.

Every Sabbath, as a weak-kneed con cession to the original sin with which his nature teemed, he was allowed to smoke one pipe under what tradition gave out to be a grape-vine in the walled back-court, but chiefly because Mrs. Tuxter had Biblical ideas about sitting under one's own vine and fig-tree. Metaphorically speaking, Tuxter was accustomed to recline in the shadow — Mrs. Tuxter's shadow. What he objected to on Sunday afternoons was that he should be awakened from slumber, made to dip his head in a pail of cold water, and then be pushed back into the black coat and waistcoat which had imprisoned his amorphous form that morning. Tea in the back-parlour behind the shop was the ostensible excuse for this malignant cruelty — tea with a sleek-faced "Brother" of the religious denomination to which Mrs. Tuxter then happened to belong — and Mr. Tuxter was well aware, with a saddened pre science born of long experience, that the cream in the little brown earthenware jug would flow for the Brother in Black alone, that the strongest brew of tea, the butteriest morsel of bread, the flakiest portions of cake, would also be absorbed in the same direction.

After tea the Brother in Black customarily wearied heaven with prayers on Tuxter's behalf. He seemed to think that Tuxter was there as a living target — a target to be ringed and bull's-eyed with pious petitional shots until riddled to pieces. In fact, among various irregular religious bodies, Tuxter was looked upon as a kind of standard training-school for young brethren, who, with inexperienced zeal, thirsted for a good subject on which to try their 'prentice hands. This part of the proceedings, however, did not trouble Tuxter so much as the others, for the simple reason that he had a soft old cushion whereon to kneel, and could lit a fat chin intu the top of the back of the low armchair, whence he somnolently followed the prayers of the preacher, and sealed the ceremony with perfunctory acquiescence in his own wickedness.

Tuxter had once gone on a cheap trip to Antwerp, and seen outside the Cathedral a cave which represented a Hell, where wooden souls writhed in flames. It had sent, to use his own expressive language, " a lump of ice down his spine " ; but he had happened to glance up into the roof of the cave, and also seen there the picture of an exquisitely beautiful Madonna, who gazed down upon the " 'Eap of Misery " (vide Tuxter) with pitiful, all -comprehensive, all-pardoning eyes. And so somehow, when ever the Brother in Black preached at Tuxter, that worthy gradually lost all sense of per sonal identity. The walls of the room faded away until they were replaced by a back ground of stone ; the dark red damask curtains began to heave, and twist, and writhe in the semblance of cruel flames, as Mrs. Tuxter's stern, thin figure became one of the supporting columns of the cave, and he (Tuxter) threw little bundles of wood on the fire, upon which the Black Brother reposed in saintly abnegation until cooked to a turn.

It was the sole effort of imagination exercised by Tuxter on the Sabbath, an effort wliich culminated in his finally transferring his oppressor to a big wooden platter, and handing him over with a jubilant shout to a group of cannibals, who had cast aside their confining waist-belts, in order to do ampler justice to the good things about to be set belore them. Tuxter invariably awakened from this pleasant vision to find the Brother in Black and Mrs. Tuxter regarding him with stony dis approbation, his prolonged snore and stertorous breathing having made them aware that the object of their minatory petitions was not giving that requisite wriggling and uncomfortable at tention necessary to the adequate manifestation of his own sinfulness. "Tuxter!" sounded in tones of stern reproof from Mrs. Tuxter's lips.

" Very pretty, my love, very pretty," Tuxter would apologetically murmur. " I were overcome by the 'eat my love " ; whereupon the Brother in Black's manner intimated pretty plainly that the heat from which Tuxter now suffered would be far more tropical at some future period. After Tuxter had been stonily, reluctantly, for given in further acidulated petitions, he was again borne off in triumph to the Brother in Black's Meeting-house, there to be prodded vigorously in the ribs by Mrs. Tuxter's sharp elbow whenever his snores disturbed the con gregation. Sycophantic females of uncertain years, who hoped (they never had the slightest encouragement for such a hope) that Mrs. Tuxter would allow them to run " a little, account," darkly surveyed Tuxter as he shuffled out from the sacred building.

" Ah. pore dear, what a trial 'e is to !er," was the favourite remark, uttered in loud whispers for Tuxter's benefit ; and this persecution went on till bed time, when Tuxter would look gleefully forward to his next day's coffin-making in which to work off the original sin engendered by his so-called day of rest. In fact, his degrees of cheerful ness were marked by the days of the week. On Monday he whistled and sang. Tuesday found him whistling only. Wednesday, he did neither. On Thursday morning symptoms of gloom settled upon his rubicund features — those features which, to Mrs. Tuxter's great grief, could never be sufficiently moulded and shaped in the lugubrious form necessary for an under taker's mute. Friday was spent in surreptitious and frequent visits to " The Stoat and Hammer " whenever Mrs. Tuxter served in the shop and could not enforce her authority.

Saturday be came a period of sepulchral gloom which nothing could dissipate ; and the tap of Tuxter's hammer at such times sounded as if he were vindictively pounding all the Brethren in Black who had j; ever made Sunday a day of torture to him in lieu of one of quiet happiness. Tuxter's workshop, his Cit}r of Refuge to which even Mrs. Tuxter rarely penetrated, was a low, roomy cellar in the basement, with whitewashed walls and a pleasant, if somewhat professional, odour of shavings. One or two boards hunsr against the walls decorated with intricately ornamental patterns of brass-headed nails, whilst shreds of black cloth, of different degrees of fineness, and various silver coffin-plates hung beneath the window, which was festooned with cobwebs wherein dwelt many spiders who impartially criticised Tuxter's work during the intervals not devoted to fiy-catching.

In a little niche between the bench and the window stood a small, three-cornered stool, with a black cloth top and two rows of brass nails for border. In the centre of the cloth were the initials " D.T." A little frame, fashioned by Tuxter's dexterous fingers and hanging immediately above the stool, contained a pencil-drawing of a very beautiful girl. A foot above the stool, marks on the wall showed where the child's head had rubbed away the whitewash from the bricks beneath. When Tuxter's soul was filled with gloom, and there was no one to deliver him from the thraldom of MB. TUXTER'S TROUBLES. 19 the oppressor, he would flee to the workshop, light a churchwarden, regardless of the imminent possibilities of conflagration, sink into a wooden armchair facin_r the little stool, and begin to talk to an imaginary occupant, whilst the portrait of the girl looked down upon him, a pitying smile on the curved lips, as if she understood his troubles and wished him well out of them — a consummation which, to Tuxter's somewhat blurred vision, seemed wildly improbable.

The girl who smiled down upon Tuxter had once filled a large share in his affection. Tuxter loved children, but it was a matter of frequent self-congratulation that he had not any of his own. He remembered the childhood of his dead sister's little girl — the girl on the wall — and was thankful that there was no other little girl to fall into Mrs. Tuxter's hands, for he had a pro foundly intense conviction that few children of tender years could successfully endure such a martyrdom. And as he sat looking at Drusilla's face upon the wall one stormy September even ing, he became conscious of a familiar knocking against the little iron-barred window on a level with the street. Mrs. Tuxter had gone out to tea. Tuxter rubbed his eyes, let his pipe fall among the shavings, and momentarily forgot to pick it up.

When he had extinguished the swiftly kindling flames, he sat down again and reached up to the rack for another churchwarden. He had already filled it and rammed home the tobacco with one finger, when a childish voice at the grating cried, " Daddy ! Daddy ! Let me in ! "

Chapter II. Little Drusilla

Tuxter rubbed his eyes and sat up, pinching himself with the air of a man who has been taken by surprise on former occasions and wishes to guard against a repetition of some startling misadventure. " Dash my buttons ! " he ex claimed. " That's what comes of dreamin' after a little cold Unsweetened at the ' Stoat aud Hammer.' Lucky the old 'oman didn't see me settin' fire to the blessid place ; there'd have been a hextra half-hour's mourner's bench for me next Sunday." " It's a mortual rough night, too," Tuxter resumed, again sinking back into his chair and looking at the picture on the wall. " That's what comes of dreamin', Drusilla," he said sadly. " Nobody ever called me ' Daddy ' 'cept you, though I was only your uncle, and you've been dead this many a year. Leastways, I'd have heerd of it, my dear, if you hadn't. I don't s'pose now, you'd have slept cumferable in any coffin I didn't measure you for.

Many a pleasant Tuxter first kissed the letter, then the child, whose little fingers again caught in the waves of his russet beard. Finding that he could not unclose the tiny rose-tinted hand, he took up Drusilla and walked softly about the cellar. With every step there dropped from off his soul the burden of loneliness. In the joy of knowing that Drusilla still lived, of seeing her tear-blotted handwriting, the universe became transformed. She had not explained why she went away — why she had remained silent all these years — why she had nearly broken his heart : but she had brought her most precious possession and left it with him to heal the dull, bruising pain which had been his for so long. He walked about, gently pressing the warm little body to his heart. She should sit in the old place just where her mother had whiled away so many childish hours, and he would sit and labour too, unmindful of that harsh voice, that creaking footstep in the shop overhead.

Unmind ! Hush ! There it was again, harsher and louder than ever ! He heard Mrs. Tuxter fretfully shut the door and begin to rub her feet on the mat. " Tuxter, Tuxter, where are you ? Why don't you bring a light? " she cried. failing to find them, lit his pipe at the gas and shambled back again. The wind fell for a moment. Again came a shrill little cry at the grating. " Daddy ! Daddy ! Let me in ! " Tuxter looked guiltily up. " Some pore little shaver out there," he said. " When I hear a child cryin', it always 'minds me of the time Drusilla run out and lost herself. It's only the children come back when they're lost ; the old 'uns stays lost, and dussent know it — not they. I wonder if Mrs. T.'s safe for another half -hour? If so, I might prig a ha'porth of brandy-balls out of the shop, and lay it to the cat.

That beast is always a-takin' his lick at the cut ham on the counter if he thinks Mrs. T. ain't lookin'. Just the same as that black-coated fellow when he sneaked my muffin last Sunday and thought I didn't see him. Manners is manners, but if he hadn't dropped that there muffin in time," continued Tuxter, lowering the gas, " there'd have been bloodshed, and all the papers would have come out next day with ' Startlin' Slaughter of a Innocent Missionary 'Ome for his 'Olidays.' I'd 'oliday 'im, if I 'ad my way." He went slowly up the cellar -steps, felt his way along the passage and the shop wall until he came to the brandy-ball shelf, and extracted a few sticky globes of the delectable compound. " That pore little image'll be wet through," he said, cautiously opening the shop-door and peer ing out.

" Here, little 'un, where are you ? Take 'em, and cut and run 'ome to your mammy." Something brushed against his legs, and a childish treble said, " Mummy's gone away. I want to 'Now I lay me down to sleep.' : Tuxter staggered back into the shop, leaving the door open. An odour of herrings and ham, of cheese and candles, floated out into the night. " No, I ain't drunk," he said in bewilderment. " Those Unsweeteneds couldn't have got into my head like that — 'specially cold 'uns. I could have understood hot 'uns mixin' me up a bit, but not cold 'uns. It's Drusilla's voice. I taught her to call me ' Daddy ' six-and-twenty year ago. Six-and-twenty year ago I never could abear for her to say ' Uncle ' : it always 'minded me of the Babes in the Wood. 'Tain't possible Drusilla's come back ! " A tired little voice, with the suspicion of a whimper in it, sounded from between Tuxter's legs.

He gently lifted the child and went to the door again, stumbling over the uneven floor iu his eagerness. But there was no one there, and he turned away in bitter disappointment, after appealingly calling Drusilla's name through the darkness. For answer, the wind blew the door to with a bang. " What am I to do with you ?" Tuxter cried, dropping the brandy-balls. " If Mrs. T. catches me like this, there'll be no end of a row. You can't stop here, you know." One little hand crept into his rough beard, the child's head fell back on his shoulder, she breathed softly, and slept. Tuxter gently laid his hairy cheek to the child's, and a thrill of joy darted through his starved heart. " It's Drusilla's child ; she's left it with me 'cause she daren't face the old 'oman," he said with conviction, as he stealthily made his way through the darkness of the cellar and deposited the little girl on a heap of shavings.

She was safe for a time at least. By-and-by would come detection. The joy of the present was his own. For some time Tuxter's hand trembled so much that he was unable to turn up the gas. At length it shot out with a sudden glare upon a golden heap of curls, a little tired, rosy face, and closed long-lashed eyes. The child was wrapped in a thick, warm shawl, and the soles of her little shoes were almost dry ; it was evident that she had not walked far. A few drops of rain still glistened on her hair. It was the Drusilla of six-and-twenty years ago. Tuxter fell on his knees with a half-stifled sob. " She's been and gone again without a word. Without a word ! " But there was a note pinned to the child's shawl. Tuxter tore it open, and hurried with it to the gas. It contained a few words : — " Daddy, I can't come back to you yet, but I have never forgotten you.

We leave England to-morrow. Be good to my second self, little Drusilla. You were always good to me, Daddy. Fight for my little one. I saw you this morning — it made my heart sore to think that I dare nut speak to you. Some day I will try to fetch my child. Whenever you are inclined to give way to aunt ; whenever you are cross with the little one ; just think I am with you again, sitting on my old stool in the corner, and watch over her for my sake. She is very sweet — my 1 1 cart aches to leave her. I have taught her to say ' Daddy, let me in.' I shall have seen you open the door aud take her to your heart before I hurry away through the darkness. God bless you, Daddy, dear Daddy, and — good bye ! " Tuxter first kissed the letter, then the child, whose little fingers again caught in the waves of his russet beard.

Finding that he could not unclose the tiny rose-tinted hand, he took up Drusilla and walked softly about the cellar. With every step there dropped from off his soul the burden of loneliness. In the joy of knowing that Drusilla still lived, of seeing her tear-blotted handwriting, the universe became transformed. She had not explained why she went away — why she had remained silent all these years — why she had nearly broken his heart : but she had brought her most precious possession and left it with him to heal the dull, bruising pain which had been his for so long. He walked about, gently pressing the warm little body to his heart. She should sit in the old place just where her mother had whiled away so many childish hours, and he would sit and labour too, unmindful of that harsh voice, that creaking footstep in the shop overhead.

Unmind ! Hush ! There it was again, harsher and louder than ever ! He heard Mrs. Tuxter fretfully shut the door and begin to rub her feet on the mat. " Tuxter, Tuxter, where are you ? Why don't you bring a light? " she cried. Tuxter, the image of despair, nervously clutched the child more closely to his heart. She was his. If necessary, he would fight for her, throw off the bondage of years. A sudden inspiration seized him. " I can't," he called back in husky tones ; " I'm puttin' Drusilla to sleep." Mrs. Tuxter let fall her new umbrella with a crash. " Mercy on us, the man's mad or drunk ! " Tuxter heard her say in angry astonishment. " He'll wish he'd put himself to sleep before I've done with him. I'll soon know which, and ! " He heard her footsteps approach the top of the cellar steps.

" What did you say?" she asked in awful tones. Tuxter stood still in the middle of the floor. "Don't make such a noise," he cried. "I'm puttin' Drusilla to sleep." Mrs. Tuxter gave another exclamation of alarm, and prepared to descend the steps. "You've been drinking," she said, sternly. " Now, just go out and dip your head in the water-butt, and be oft' to bed. I'll talk to you to-morrow when you're in a state to be reasoned with." " I'm puttin' Drusilla to sleep," replied Tuxter doggedly. " You " Mrs. Tuxter almost started back. ' You're what ? " " I'm puttin' Drusilla to sleep," repeated Tuxter, clinging to his previous statement with limpet-like tenacity. He remained tightly holding the child in his arms as if the contact with it would the better enable him to face Mrs. Tuxter. That some what shrewish lady was not in the best of tempers.

Although accustomed to describe her self as a humble handmaid of Aminadab Chapel, she was not at all pleased to be taken at her word. At the tea from which she had just returned, a fairer, sleeker, and altogether plumper and more alluring handmaid had scandalously monopolised the attention of the pastor of Aminadab Chapel. That clerical saint had gone so far as to thrice entreat this younger sister to partake of muffins, without even deigning to offer Mrs. Tuxter a piece of toast, buttered or otherwise. Mrs. Tuxter had been nursing her wrath all the way home, fully determined when she reached there to use her husband as a safety valve. She had put her umbrella down in the passage with a thump of grim determination before, metaphorically speaking, girding up her loins for the fray. It was but seldom that she descended to seek Tuxter in his subterranean lair, principally on account of the difficulty she experienced in reaching it ; for Tuxter, with far-seeing prudence, had contrived an in geniously-constructed series of barricades, in the shape of old boards and pails, in order to give him ample warning of her approach.

In ordinary cases when Mrs. Tuxter wished to chasten her husband, she began by shouting to him from the other end of the passage. By the time she had removed the various articles in her way and reached the top of the stairs, the force of her fury had spent itself, and Tuxter was thus enabled to obtain better terms than he otherwise would have done. But in the present instance, before Mrs. Tuxter's departure, she had ordained that the passage should be swept and cleared of all impediments. Tuxter's heart sank as she descended the stairs, putting down each foot with an angry clump. He knew instinctively that there would be a scene, and, remembering other quarrels of a similar nature, braced himself for the fray. His heart throbbed with a mingling of disappointment and joy ; disappointment that he had not seen Drusilla, joy that she had so far remembered her. old affection for him as to leave the little girl in his charge.

The love of Drusilla was the one green spot of a life spent in the matrimonial desert with Mrs. Tuxter, and the memory of it alone enabled him to withstand the onslaughts of that energetic female. " What are you wasting all that gas for ? " Mrs. Tuxter demanded, after having decided to seek her husband in his lair. " One would think you had something to rejoice about instead of leaving your wife to go out alone and be insulted by these Aminadab people. I've long thought of leaving them ; now I shall do it. Their goings-on are " By this time she had reached about half way down the cellar stairs. Tuxter stood in the middle of the floor, feebly endeavouring to recall the kind of rocking-step with which he had been accustomed, many years ago, to hush the original Drusilla to sleep. " What have you got there ?

" demanded Mrs. Tuxter, catching sight of the child's golden curls. Tuxter mutely held out the child. Mrs. Tuxter's upraised hands fell limply to her side. She seemed to have aged suddenly. "Drusilla!" she faltered, making a step forward. The child woke up with a cry and buried its little head in Tuxter's shoulder. Mrs. Tuxter at once hated it. She had always been jealous of her husband's affection for Drusilla, and now instinctively recognised that her niece in entrusting the child to Tuxter, intended that he should protect it. Had the little one been sent to Mrs. Tuxter in the first instance, matters might have turned out differently ; but directly the child moved awa}~ from her with a frightened cry she froze up again. " What are you doing with that child ? " she said with concentrated bitterness.

" Where did you get it ? " " Drusilla sent her to me," replied Tuxter. " She's had to leave it ; it's mine : I'm goin' to take care of it." " Take it to the nearest police-station at once," retorted Mrs. Tuxter with angiy bitterness. " I've enough to do to support you without looking after this bastard brat." Tuxter did not quail. " I'd be ashamed," he said gently, " to think God heard me speak of my own flesh and blood like that. Some folk seem to think He hears their prayers and not their curses, it ain't goin' to be sent away ; it ain't goin' to be given up to nobody till Drusilla 'wants it." " Do you mean to say," cried Mrs. Tuxter, " you're going to defy me ? " Tuxter was busily hushing the child to sleep. " Oh, go away," he said impatiently. "Go away — you and your muffins and your Aminadabs !