the wide earth to Papa and Mamma--both crying this
time. Punch was very sleepy and Judy was cross.
"Don't forget us," pleaded Mamma. "Oh, my little son, don't forget us,
and see that Judy remembers too."
"I've told Judy to bemember," said Punch, wiggling, for his father's
beard tickled his neck. "I've told Judy--ten--forty--'leven thousand
times. But Ju 's so young--quite a baby--is n't she?"
"Yes," said Papa, "Quite a baby, and you must be good to Judy, and
make haste to learn to write and--and--and----"
Punch was back in his bed again. Judy was fast asleep, and there was
the rattle of a cab below. Papa and Mamma had gone away. Not to
Nassick; that was across the sea. To some place much nearer, of
course, and equally of course they would return. They came back after
dinner-parties, and Papa had come back after he had been to a place
called "The Snows," and Mamma with him, to Punch and Judy at Mrs.
Inverarity's house in Marine Lines. Assuredly they would come back
again. So Punch fell asleep till the true morning, when the
black-haired boy met him with the information that Papa and Mamma had
gone to Bombay, and that he and Judy were to stay at Downe Lodge
"forever." Antirosa, tearfully appealed to for a contradiction, said
that Harry had spoken the truth, and that it behooved Punch to fold up
his clothes neatly on going to bed. Punch went out and wept bitterly
with Judy, into whose fair head he had driven some ideas of the
meaning of separation.
When a matured man discovers that he has been deserted by Providence,
deprived of his God, and cast without help, comfort, or sympathy, upon
a world which is new and strange to him, his despair, which may find
expression in evil-living, the writing of his experiences, or the more
satisfactory diversion of suicide, is generally supposed to be
impressive. A child, under exactly similar circumstances as far as its
knowledge goes, cannot very well curse God and die. It howls till its
nose is red, its eyes are sore, and its head aches. Punch and Judy,
through no fault of their own, had lost all their world. They sat in
the hall and cried; the black-haired boy looking on from afar.
The model of the ship availed nothing, though the gray man assured
Punch that he might pull the rigging up and down as much as he
pleased; and Judy was promised free entry into the kitchen. They
wanted Papa and Mamma, gone to Bombay beyond the seas, and their grief
while it lasted was without r
|