Suddenly a look of pleasure flashed over her countenance. She sprang
from her seat, and advancing towards Frank, exclaimed:
"Maybe you'll be wanting a veil, Sir. I've plenty nice ones, stronger,
better, and cheaper than you'll get at the store. Summer dust's coming,
Sir. You'll want one, won't you? I havn't sold one this week," she
added, almost imploringly, perceiving what she fancied a "no-customer"
look in his face.
"I'll have one, little girl," he answered in a kindly tone, "and what
price is it to be?"
"Eighteen pence, Sir, if you'd please be so good."
Frank put the money into her hand, but returned the veil. This action
seemed not quite to satisfy her; either she did not comprehend what he
meant, or it hurt her self-pride, for she said quickly:
"I havn't only green veils - p'raps you'd like some candles better - I
makes them too."
"YOU make them?" said Frank, laughing as he glanced at the little hands
that were still holding the veil for his acceptance. "YOU make them?
Your mother makes the candles, you mean."
"I have no mother now," said she, with an expression of real melancholy
in her countenance and voice. "I makes the candles and the veils, and
the diggers they buys them of me, cos grandfather's ill, and got nobody
to work for him but me."
"Where do you and your grandfather live?" I asked. "In there?" pointing
to the blanket tent.
She nodded her head, adding in a lower tone:
"He's asleep now. He sleeps more than he did. He's killed hisself
digging for the gold, and he never got none, and he says 'he'll
dig till he dies.'"
"Dig till he dies." Fit motto of many a disappointed gold-seeker, the
finale of many a broken up, desolated home, the last dying words of
many a husband, far away from wife or kindred, with no loved ones near
to soothe his departing moments - no better burial - place than the very
hole, perchance, in which his last earthly labours were spent. These
were some of the thoughts that rapidly chased one another in my mind as
the sad words and still sadder tone fell upon my ear.
I was roused by hearing Frank's voice in inquiry as to how she made her
candles, and she answered all our questions with a child-like NAIVETE,
peculiarly her own. She told us how she boiled down the fat - how once it
had caught fire and burnt her severely, and there was the scar still
showing on her brown little arm - then how she poured the hot fat into,
the tin mould, first fastening in the wicks, then shut up the mould and
left it to grow cold as quickly as it would; all this, and many other
particulars which I have long since forgotten, she told us; and
little by little we learnt too her own history.
