Beth's brain began to be extraordinarily busy. She recorded nothing, but her daily doings were so many works of her imagination. She was generally somebody else in these days, seldom herself; and people who did not understand this might have supposed that she was an exceedingly mendacious little girl, when she was merely speaking consistently in the character which she happened to be impersonating. She would spend hours of the afternoon alone in the drawing-room, standing in the window looking out while she wove her fancies; and she soon began to go out also, by the back-door, when the mood was upon her, without asking anybody's leave. She had wandered off in this way on one occasion to the south side, whither her people rarely went. At the top of the cliff, where the winding road began which led down to the harbour, a paralysed sailor was sitting in a wickerwork wheeled chair, looking over the sea. Beth knew the man by sight. He had been a yachtsman in the service of one of her great-uncles, and she had heard hints of extraordinary adventures they had had together. It filled her with compassion to see him sitting there so lonely and helpless, and as she approached she resolved herself into a beneficent being, able and willing to help. She had a book under her arm, a costly volume which Mrs. Caldwell had borrowed to read to the children. Beth had been looking at the pictures when the desire to go out suddenly seized upon her, and had carried the book off inadvertently.

"How are you to-day, Tom?" she said, going up to the invalid confidently. "I'm glad to see you out. We shall soon have you about again as well as ever. I knew a man in Ireland much worse than you are. He couldn't move his hands and arms. Legs are bad enough, but when it's hands and arms as well, you know, it's worse. Well, now you couldn't tell there'd ever been anything the matter with him."

"And what cured 'im?" Tom asked with interest.

"Oh, he just thought he'd get well, you know. You've got to set yourself that way, don't you see? If mountains can be moved by faith, you can surely move your own legs!"

"That sounds reasonable any way," Tom ejaculated.

"Do you like reading?" said Beth.

"Yes, I read a bit at times."

"Well, I've brought you a book," Beth proceeded, handing him the borrowed volume. "You'll find it interesting, I'm sure. It's a great favourite of mine."

"You're mighty good," the sailor said.

"Oh, not at all," Beth answered largely. Then she wished him good-bye. But she often visited him again in the same character, and the stories she told that unhappy invalid for his comfort and encouragement were amazing. When the book was missed, and her mother bothered about it, she listened serenely, and even helped to look for it.

Beth strolled homewards when she left her protÉgÉ, and on the way she became Norna of the Fitful Head. She tried Minna and Brenda first, but these characters were too insipid for her taste. Norna was different. She did things, you know, and made charms, and talked poetry, and people were afraid of her. Beth believed in her thoroughly. She'd be Norna, and make charms. But she had no lead. Norna looked about her. She knew by magic that Cleveland was coming to consult her, and she had no lead. There was a border of lead, however, over the attic window outside. All she had to do was to steal upstairs, climb out of the window on to the roof, and cut a piece of the lead off. It was now the mystic moment to obtain lead, but she must be wary. She strolled through the kitchen in a casual way. Harriet was busy about the grate, and paid no attention to her; so she secured the carving-knife without difficulty, went up to the attic, and opened the window. She was now on the dangerous pinnacle of a temple, risking her life in order to obtain the materials for a charm which would give her priceless power.

On the other side of the street, there lived in the Orchard House another widow-woman with three daughters. She let lodgings, and was bringing up her children to honest industry in that state of life. She and Mrs. Caldwell took a kindly interest in each other's affairs. Mrs. Davy happened to be changing the curtains in front that afternoon when Beth crept out of the attic window on to the roof, and she was paralysed with horror for a moment, expecting to see the child roll off into the street. She was a sensible woman, however, and quickly recovering herself, she ran across the road, with her spectacles on, and rapped at Mrs. Caldwell's door. Beth, hacking away at the lead with the carving-knife, did not heed the rap. Presently, however, she heard hurried footsteps on the stairs, and climbed back into the attic incontinently, putting her spoils in her pocket. When Mrs. Davy, her mother, and Harriet, all agitated, burst open the door, she was standing at the window looking out tranquilly.

"What were you doing on the roof, Beth?" her mother demanded.

"Nothing," Beth answered.

"Mrs. Davy says she saw you get out of the window."

Beth was silent.

"You're a bad girl, giving your mother so much trouble," Mrs. Davy exclaimed, looking at her under her spectacles sternly. "If you was my child I'd whack you, I would."

Beth was instantly a lady, sneering at this common woman who was taking a liberty which she knew her mother would resent as much as she did.

"And what were you doing with the carving-knife, Miss Beth?" cried Harriet, spying it on the floor, and picking it up. Criminals are only clever up to a certain point; Beth had forgotten to conceal the carving-knife. "Oh dear! oh dear! If you 'aven't 'acked it all the way along!"

"Oh dear! oh dear!" Mrs. Caldwell echoed. It was her best carving-knife, and Beth would certainly have been beaten if Mrs. Davy had not suggested it. As it was, however, Mrs. Caldwell controlled her temper, and merely ordered her to go downstairs immediately. In the management of her children she would not be dictated to by anybody.

This was Beth's first public appearance as a disturber of the peace, and the beginning of the bad name she earned for herself in certain circles eventually. But she was let off lightly for it. Mrs. Caldwell's punishments were never retrospective. She was thunder and lightning in her wrath; a flash and then a bang, and it was all over. If she missed the first movement, the culprit escaped. She could no more have punished one of her children in cold blood than she could have cut its throat.

Beth ran down to the acting-room, so called because the boys had brought home the idea of acting in the holidays, and they had got up charades there on a stage made of boxes, with an old counterpane for a curtain, and farthing candles for footlights. It was a long, narrow room over the kitchen, with a sloping roof. Three steps led down into it. There was a window at one end, a small lattice with an iron bar nailed to the outside vertically. Beth swung herself out round the bar, dropped on to the back-kitchen roof, crept across the tiles to the chimney at the far corner, stepped thence on to the top of the old wooden pump, and from the top to the spout, from the spout to the stone trough, and so into the garden. Then she ran round to the kitchen, and got a candle, a canister, and some water in a pail, all of which she took up to the acting-room by way of the back-kitchen roof. The canister happened to contain allspice, but this was not to be considered when she wanted the canister, so she emptied it from the roof on to Harriet's head as she happened to be passing, and so got some good out of it, for Harriet displayed strong feeling on the subject both at the moment and afterwards, when she was trying to get the stuff out of her hair; which interested Beth, who in some such way often surprised people into the natural expression of emotions which she might never otherwise have discovered. Bernadine had been playing alone peaceably in the garden, but Beth persuaded her to come upstairs. She found Beth robed in the old counterpane, with her hair dishevelled, and the room darkened. Beth was Norna now in her cell on the Fitful Head, and Bernadine was the shrinking but resolute Minna come to consult her. Beth made her sit down, drew a magic circle round her with a piece of chalk, and, in a deep tragic voice, warned her not to move if she valued her life, for there were evil spirits in the room. The pail stood on a box draped with an old black shawl, and round this she also drew a circle. Then she put some lead in the canister, melted it over the candle, dropped it into the water, and muttered—

She plunged her hand into the water—

Three times round the pail she went, moaning, groaning, writhing her body, and wringing her hands—

At this Bernadine, whose nerves were completely shaken, set up such a howl that Harriet came running to see what was the matter. She soon let light into the acting-room. Mrs. Caldwell and Aunt Victoria had gone to see Aunt Grace Mary, so Harriet was in charge of the children, and to save herself further trouble, she took them up to a black-hole there was without a window at the top of the house, and locked them in. The place was quite empty, so that they could do no harm, and they did not seem to mind being locked up. Harriet intended to give them a little fright and then let them out; but, being busy, she forgot them, and when at last she remembered, it was so dark she had to take a candle; and great was her horror, on opening the door, to see both children stretched out on the bare boards side by side, apparently quite dead. One glance at their ghastly faces was enough for Harriet. She just looked and then fled, shrieking, with the candle alight in her hand, right out into the street. Several people who happened to be passing at the time stopped to see what was the matter. Harriet's talent for fiction furnished her with a self-saving story on the instant. She said the children had shut themselves up and got smothered.

"We'd better go and see if there's nothing can be done," a respectable workman suggested.

Harriet led the way, about a dozen people following, all awe-stricken and silent. When they came to the door, they peeped in over each other's shoulders at the two poor children, stretched out stiff and stark, the colour of death, their jaws dropped, their glazed eyes shining between the half-closed lids, a piteous spectacle.

"Just let's see the candle a moment," the workman said. He took it from Harriet, and entered stooping—the place was a mere closet just under the roof, and he could not stand upright in it. He peered into the children's faces, then knelt down beside them, and felt their arms and chests. Suddenly he burst out laughing.

"You little devils," he said, "what 'a' ye done this for?"

Beth sat up. "Harriet locked us in to give us a fright, so we thought we'd frighten Harriet," she said.

The walls were whitewashed, and the children had made themselves ghastly by rubbing their faces all over with the whitening.

"You've getten yer 'ands full wi' them two, I'm thinkin', missis," the workman remarked to Harriet as he went off chuckling.

"Did you hear, Beth?" Bernadine complained; "he called us little devils."

"All right," Beth answered casually. But Bernadine was disgusted. She was one of those pious children who like to stand high in the estimation of the grown-up people; and she disapproved of Beth's conduct when it got her into trouble. She was like the kind of man who enjoys being vicious so long as he is not found out by any one who will think the less of him for it; when he is found out he excuses himself, and blames his associates. Bernadine never resisted Beth's eloquent persuasions, nor the luring fascination of her schemes; but when she had had her full share of the pleasures of naughtiness, and was tired and cross, her conscience smote her, and then she told mamma. This did her good, and got Beth punished, which made Bernadine feel that she had expiated her own naughtiness and been forgiven, and also made her feel sorry for Beth—a nice kind feeling, which she always enjoyed.

Beth despised her for her conscientious treachery, and retaliated by tempting her afresh. One day she lured her out on to the tiles through an attic window in the roof, at the back of the house. It would be such fun to sit astride on the roof-ridge, and look right down into the street, she said, and across Mrs. Davy's orchard to the fields on that side, and out to sea on the other.

"And things will come into our minds up there—such lovely things," she proceeded, beguiling Bernadine to distract her attention as she helped her up. When they were securely seated, Bernadine began to grumble.

"Things don't come into my mind," she whined.

"Don't they? Why, I was just thinking if we were to fall we should certainly be killed," Beth answered cheerfully. "We should come down thump, and that would crack our skulls, and our brains would roll out on the pavement. Ough! wouldn't they look nasty, just like a sheep's! And mamma and Aunt Victoria would rush out, and Harriet and Mrs. Davy, and they'd have to hold mamma up by the arms. Then they'd pick us up, and carry us in, and lay us out on a bed, and say they were beautiful in their lives, and in death they were not divided; and when they shut the house up at night and it was all still, mamma would cry. She'd be always crying, especially for you, Bernadine, because you're not such a trouble as I am. And when you were buried, and the worms were eating you, she would give all the world to have you here again."

This sad prospect was too much for the sensitive Bernadine. "Don't, Beth," she whimpered. "You frighten me."

"Oh, you mustn't be frightened," said Beth encouragingly. "When people up on a height like this get frightened, they always roll off. Do you feel as if the roof were moving?" she exclaimed, suddenly clutching hold.

Bernadine fell down flat on her face with a dismal howl.

"Let's be cats now," said Beth. "I'll say miew-ow-ow, and you oo-oo-owl-hiss-ss-ss."

"Don't, Beth. I want to go back."

"Come along then," said Beth.

"I can't. I daren't move."

"Oh, nonsense," said Beth; "just follow me. I shall go and leave you if you don't. You shouldn't have come up if you were afraid."

"You made me," Bernadine whimpered with her eyes shut.

"Of course it was me!" said Beth, on her way back to the skylight. "You haven't a will of your own, I suppose!"

"You aren't leaving me, Beth!" Bernadine cried in an agony. "Don't go! I'm frightened! Help me down! I'll tell mamma!"

"Then there you'll sit, tell-pie-tit," Beth chanted, as she let herself down through the skylight.

Presently she appeared on the other side of the street, and performed a war-dance of delight as she looked up at her sister, prone upon the roof-ridge. "You do look so funny, Bernadine," she cried. "Your petticoats are nohow; and you seem to have only one leg, and it is so long and thin!"

Bernadine howled aloud. Mrs. Caldwell was not at home; but the cry brought Mrs. Davy out in her spectacles. When she saw the child's dangerous predicament, she seized Beth and shook her emphatically.

"Oh, thank you," said Beth.

"What 'a' you bin doin' now, you bad girl?" said Mrs. Davy. "Hold on, missy," she called up to Bernadine. "We'll soon 'ave ye down. You're all right! You'll not take no 'arm."

Harriet now came running out, wringing her hands, and uttering hysterical exclamations.

"Shut up, you fool," said Mrs. Davy.

Doors opened all the way down the street, and a considerable crowd had soon collected. Beth, quite detached from herself, leant against the orchard-wall and watched the people with interest.

How to get the child down was the difficulty, as there was no ladder at hand long enough to reach up to the roof.

"I'll go and fetch her down if you like," said Beth.

"I should think so! and then there'd be two of you," said Mrs. Davy.

"I don't see how you'll manage it then," said Beth. "There isn't foothold for a man to get out of the attic-window." Having spoken, she strolled off with an air of indifference, and disappeared. She was a heroine of romance now, going to do a great deed; and before she was missed, the horrified spectators saw her climbing out of the front attic-window smiling serenely. The people held their breath as they watched her go up the roof on the slippery tiles at a reckless rate to her sister.

"Come along, Bernadine," she whispered. "Such fun! There's a whole crowd down there watching us. Just let them see you're not afraid."

Bernadine peeped. It was gratifying to be an object of such interest.

"Come along, don't be an idiot," said Beth. "Just follow me, and don't look at anything but the tiles. That's the way I learnt to do it."

Bernadine's courage revived. Slowly she slid from the roof-ridge, Beth helping her carefully. It looked fearfully dangerous, and the people below dared not utter a sound. When they got to the attic-window, Beth, herself on the edge of the roof, guided her sister past her, and helped her in. She was following herself, when some tiles gave way beneath her, and fell with a crash into the street. Fortunately she had hold of the sill, but for a moment her legs hung over; then she pulled herself through, and, falling head first on to the floor, disappeared from sight. The people below relieved their feelings with a faint cheer.

"Eh, but she's a bad un," said Mrs. Davy, who was trembling all over.

"Well, she's a rare plucky un, at any rate," said a man in the crowd, admiringly.

Crowds constantly collected at the little house in Orchard Street in those days. When Mrs. Caldwell had to go out alone she was always anxious, not knowing what might be happening in her absence. Coming home from Lady Benyon's one summer evening, she found the whole street blocked with people, and the roadway in front of her own house packed so tight she could not get past. Beth had dressed herself up in a mask and a Russian sheepskin cloak which had belonged to her father, and sat motionless in the drawing-room window on a throne made of an arm-chair set on a box; while Bernadine played Scotch airs on the piano. A couple of children passing had stopped to see what on earth the thing was, then a man and woman had come along and stopped too, then several girls, some sailors, the bellman, and many more, until the street was full. Harriet was enjoying the commotion in the background, but when Mrs. Caldwell appeared, she gave the signal, the piano stopped, and the strange beast roared loudly and fled.

But Beth had her human moments. They generally came on in wet weather, which depressed her. She would then stand in the drawing-room window by the hour together, looking out at the miserable street, thinking of the poor people, all cold and wet and hungry. She longed to do something for them, and one day she stopped a little girl who was going with a jug for some beer to the "Shining Star," a quiet little public-house on the same side of the street.

"I suppose you are a very ignorant little girl," said Beth severely.

"Aw?"

"What's your name?"

"Emily Bean."

"Do you learn lessons?"

"Naw."

"Dear me, how dreadful!" said Beth. "You ought to be taught, you know. Would you like to be taught?"

"Ah should."

"Well, you come here every afternoon at two o'clock, and I'll teach you."

"Ah mon jest ass mother first," said Emily.

"Yes—I'd forgotten that," Beth rejoined. "Well, you come if she lets you."

Emily nodded, and was going on her errand, but stopped. "Did you ass yer own mother if you might?" she wanted to know.

"No, I didn't think of that either," Beth rejoined. "But I will."

"Will she let you?"

"I don't know"—rather doubtfully.

"I expect she will if you wait until she's in a good humour," the child of the people sagely suggested.

"All right. You come at any rate," Beth answered boldly.

Mrs. Caldwell consented. She came of a long line of lady patronesses, and thought it natural and becoming that her child should wish to improve the "common people." Punctually to the moment Emily arrived next day, and Beth sat down with her in the kitchen, and taught her a, b, ab, and b, a, d, bad. Then she repeated a piece of poetry to her, and read her a little story. Harriet was busy in the back kitchen, and Bernadine was out with her mother and Aunt Victoria, so Beth and her pupil had the kitchen to themselves. The next day, however, Harriet wanted to clean the kitchen, so they had to retire to the acting-room. This was Beth's first attempt to apply such knowledge as she possessed, and in her anxiety to improve the child of the people, she improved herself in several respects. She began to read better, became less afraid of writing and spelling, mastered the multiplication table, and found she could "make out" how to do easy sums from the book. This gave her the first real interest she had ever had in school-work, and inspired her with some slight confidence in herself. She felt the dignity of the position of teacher too, and the responsibility. She never betrayed her own ignorance, nor did anything to shake Emily's touching belief in her superiority; and she never shook Emily. She knew she could have done better herself if there had been less thumping and shaking, and she had the wisdom to profit by her mother's errors of judgment already—not that Emily ever provoked her. The child was apt and docile, and the lessons were a sort of improving game.

How to impart religious instruction was the thing that troubled Beth most: she used to lie awake at night thinking out the problem. She found that Emily had learnt many texts and hymns in the Sunday-school to which she went regularly, and Beth made her repeat them, and soon knew them all by heart herself; but she did not think that she taught Emily enough. One day in church, however, she thought of a way to extend her teaching. Bernadine had joined her class for fun, and was playing at learning too; and now Beth proposed that they should fit up a chapel in the acting-room, and resolve themselves occasionally into a clergyman and congregation. A chair with the bottom knocked out was the pulpit, and a long narrow box stood on end was the reading-desk. Beth was the parson, of course, in a white sheet filched from the soiled-clothes bag, and changed for a black shawl for the sermon. She read portions of Scripture standing, she read prayers on her knees, she led a hymn; and then she got into the black shawl and preached. What these discourses were about, she could not remember in after years; but they must have been fascinating, for the congregation listened unwearied so long as she chose to go on.

Emily was a disappointment in one way: she had no imagination. Beth pretended to take her photograph one day, after the manner of the photographers on the sands.

"Now, this is the picture," she said, showing her a piece of glass.

"But there isn't no picture on it," said Emily, staring hard at the glass.

"How stupid you are," said Beth, disgusted. "Look again."

"There isn't," Emily protested. "Just you show it to Bernadine."

"You should say Miss Bernadine," that young lady admonished her.

A few minutes afterwards Emily corrected Bernadine for not saying miss to Beth and herself. Beth tried to explain, but Emily could not see why she should say miss to them if they did not say miss to her and to each other.

Poor Mrs. Caldwell was in great straits for want of money at this time. She had scarcely enough to pay for their meagre fare, and her own clothes and the children's were almost beyond patching and darning. Beth surprised her several times sitting beside the dining-table with the everlasting mending on her lap, fretting silently, and the child's heart was wrung. There was some legal difficulty, and letters which added to her mother's trouble came to the house continually.

The same faculty made Beth either the naughtiest or the best of children; the difference depended on her heart: if that were touched, she was all sympathy; but if no appeal was made to her feelings, her daily doings were the outcome of so many erratic impulses acted on without consideration, merely to vary the disastrous monotony of those long idle afternoons.

The day after she had surprised her mother fretting over her letters, another packet arrived. Beth happened to be early up that morning, and opened the door to the postman. She would like to have given the packet back to him, but that being impossible, she carried it up to the acting-room and hid it in the roof. When her mother came down, however, she found to her consternation that the fact of there being no letter at all that morning was a greater trouble if anything than the arrival of the one the day before; so she boldly brought it down and delivered it, quite expecting to be whipped. But for once Mrs. Caldwell asked for an explanation, and the child's motive was so evident that even her mother was more affected by her sympathy than enraged by the inconvenient expression of it.

The next day she was playing on the pier with Bernadine. Her mother and Aunt Victoria were walking up and down, not paying much attention to the children. First they swung on a chain that was stretched from post to post down the middle of the pier to keep people from being washed off in stormy weather; but Bernadine tumbled over backwards and hurt her head, and was jeered at besides by some rude little street children, who could not understand why the little Caldwells, who were as shabby as themselves, should look down on them, and refuse to associate with them. It was not Beth's nature to be exclusive. She had no notion of differences of degree. Any pleasant person was her equal. She was as much gratified by friendly notice from the milkman, the fishwoman, and the sweep as from Lady Benyon or Count Bartahlinsky; and very early thought it contemptible to jeer at people for want of means and defects of education. She never talked of the "common people," after she found that Harriet was hurt by the phrase; and she would have been on good terms with all the street children had it not been for what Mrs. Caldwell called "Bernadine's superior self-respect." Bernadine told if Beth spoke to one of them, and as Beth had no friends amongst them as yet, she did not feel that their acquaintance was worth fighting for. But the street children resented the attitude of the two shabby little ladies, and were always watching for opportunities to annoy them. Accordingly, when Bernadine tumbled off the chain head-over-heels backwards, there was a howl of derision. "Oh my! Ain't she getten thin legs!" "Ah say, Julia, did you see that big 'ole i' her stockin'?" "Naw, but ah seed the patch on 'er petticoat!" "Eh—an' she's on'y getten one on, an' it isn't flannel." "An' them's ladies!"

Bernadine's pride came to her rescue on these occasions. At home she howled when she was hurt, but now she affected to laugh, and both sisters strolled off with their little heads up, and an exasperating air of indifference to the enemy. The tide was out, and they went down into the harbour and found a large oyster among the piles of the wooden jetty. When they got home, the difficulty was how to open it; but they managed to make it open itself by holding it over the kitchen fire on the shovel. When it began to lift its lid, Beth sent Bernadine for a fork, and while she was getting it Beth ate the oyster. But Bernadine could not see the joke, and her rage was not to be appeased even by the oyster-shell, which Beth said she might have the whole of.

The battle came off after dinner that evening But it was a day of disaster. Harriet was out of temper; and Mrs. Caldwell appeared mysteriously, just as Beth knocked Bernadine down and sat on her stomach.

They were reading a story of French life at that time, and something came into it about snail-broth as a cure for consumption, and snail-oil as a remedy for rheumatism. The next day there was a most extraordinary smell all over the house. Mrs. Caldwell, Aunt Victoria, Harriet, and Bernadine went sniffing about, but could find nothing to account for it. Beth sat at the dining-table with a book before her, taking no notice. At last Harriet had occasion to open the oven door, and just as she did so there was a loud explosion, and the kitchen wall opposite was bespattered with boiling animal matter. Beth had got up early, and collected snails enough in the garden to fill a blacking-bottle, corked them up tight, and put them into the darkest corner of the oven, her idea being to render them into oil, as Harriet rendered suet into fat, and go and rub rheumatic people with it. As usual, however, her motive was ignored, while a great deal was made of the mess on the kitchen wall—which disheartened her, especially as several other philanthropic enterprises happened to fail about the same time.

Emily appeared with a bad toothache one day, and finding a remedy for it gave Beth a momentary interest in life. She told Emily she had a cure for toothache, and Emily, never doubting, let her put some soft substance into the tooth with the end of a match.

"It won't taste very nice," said Beth; "but you mustn't mind that. You just go home, and you'll find it won't ache any more."

When Emily returned next day she gratefully proclaimed herself cured, and her mother wanted to know "whatever the stuff was."

"Soap," said Beth.

"Oh, you mucky thing!" Emily exclaimed. She resented the application of such a substance to the inside of her person. Her plebeian mind was too narrow to conceive a second legitimate use for soap, and from that day Beth's influence declined. Emily's attendance became irregular, then gradually ceased altogether; not, however, before Beth's own interest in the lessons was over, and her mind much occupied with other things.