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Show BIBBS. There was no doubt about it; John Weare was perfectly wretched that night. He had quarrelled with Jennie Bell, and he wasn't going to make up. The fact was she gave herself too many airs, and he didn't mean to stand it any longer. He didn't care if she was pretty, there was no reason why she should let half a dozen fellows at a time hang about the shop, or stroll in one at a time and, lean on her elbows, chatter and smirk and smile over the counter, cadets and officers too, wild young fellows, who only did so for their own idle amusement, and would no more dream of marrying her than they would of inviting her to a ball that was coming off next month. To be sure, he was only a common cavalry soldier, but then he had been in the service a good many years now, had an excellent character, and a good trade at his back, his father had died not long since, and there was a cottage all ready for Jennie to walk into, and they might settle down at once if she'd only be sensible. Jennie acted as shop woman for her sister, Mrs. Evans. A very poor little shop it was, very small and badly stocked, for Mrs. Evans had only managed to get a few pounds worth of things with what had been subscribed for her at the garrison after the fever had carried off her husband. The speculation answered pretty well at first, for many of the officer's wives, knowing what an industrious woman Mrs. Evans was, made a point of buying their tapes and cotton and sticks of sealing wax of her. Then Jennie's pretty face was seen behind the counter, and the shop was filled from morning until night with officers and frisky young cadets, and the original customers took flight-though Mrs. Evans did not know it, believing the business was safe in the keeping of Jennie, worked hard at the dressmaking (she had three children to support, and the shop alone would not do it). The officers were not profitable customers, for they only went to flirt with Jennie under the excuse of buying a penny paper, or perhaps asking for a time table. Jennie made the most trim and pretty and obliging of shop women, and the place itself was always a pattern of neatness, but the officers' wives did not care to go and buy thread where they were evidently interrupting a flirtation, and so the business continued to fall off, and Mrs. Evans began to get quite unhappy about it. Jennie-pretty, kind hearted, thoughtless Jennie-had no idea that she had anything to do with it, or she would have sent every one of her admirers off at a pace that would have astonished them. She had been only too delighted, after her brother-in-law died, to come from Devonshire and live with her sister at Goodwich-not only because she was very fond of her sister, but also because she had wished many times to see John ?? again. She had made his acquaintance when her brother and he-for they had been in the same regiment-were stationed at Plymouth, and she had paid him a flying visit with her father. John had told her that he was tired of the service and wished to settle down and she inwards thought that he could do no better than to ?? to settle with him. He had [missing] when she came to Wood [missing] gradually established himself on [missing] of a lover, till he found the shop always filled with the officers and cadets. At first he was shy of appearing before his superiors, then he got jealous and at last angry, for he felt and knew that they meant her no good, and besides it was doing real injury to the business of the shop. At last he spoke his mind and told the coquettish Jennie what he thought, and was snubbed for his pains. "If you think I don't know how to take care of myself, Mr. Weare, you are very much mistaken and I don't want anyone to tell me what's right or wrong. I know for myself." "Well, Miss Jennie, I didn't mean to give offence. I only told you what I thought." "Then you might have kept your thoughts to yourself," she said with a little toss of her head-"unless they had been nice once," she added. Her heard the aside and picked up his courage. "It's awfully hard, too, when one that cares really can't get near you," he replied. Just then Jennie caught sight of Captain McGee, a tall and handsome man, with long whiskers and a red nose, coming in the direction of the shop, with a big bunch of flowers in his hand. She had heard John Weare's last words, but she was secretly of the opinion that he ought to have come up to the scratch before," so she thought that a little jealousy might do him good. "Oh, here comes Captain McGee," she said, in a delighted tone. "Well he's just the biggest blackleg in the service, Jennie and if you take my advice you'll send him off sharp." "I believe you are jealous, Mr. Weare and telling stories about the captain, he is always very polite to me," and she smoothed her pretty hair and arranged the trifles on the counter. "Oh, he's polite enough, no doubt." "And he's bringing me some flowers." "Now look here, Jennie, are you going to take them?" "Of course I am." "Well, then, good by." "Good by," she laughed. Of course she knew he wouldn't go. "Jennie, he'll be in directly, and I shall be off, but you must choose between him and me. If you are going to keep on talking to him. I shall never come in the place again, so which is it to be?" "The captain." "But I am not joking; I'll never see you again." "No more am I joking, so good by." "Good by," and he went. That night John Weare was miserable. "She can't care a rush for me," he thought, and marched all over the town, and nearly to Greenwich and back in his excitement. The next day was a lucky one for John. He came across Bibbs. Bibbs was Mrs. Evans eldest boy. No one knew what his real name was, or why he was never called anything else. "Bibbs," said John Weare, "Come and have some fruit," and he carried himself in triumph to the cottage and stuffed him with gooseberries until he couldn't ?? and with black currants till his men ?? as black as a crow. Then he carried him inside and stood him on the table and sat down before him. "Bibbs, how old are you?" He thought it better to begin the conversation with a question. "Five and half. Is that your sword up there?" "Yes. Who gave you those bronze shoes, Bibbs?" Now he knew Jennie had given them to him, but he so wanted to hear her name. "Auntie. She's going away soon," he added. "Let me look at your sword now?" "Where is she going?" he asked, with a sick feeling at his heart. "She's ill, I think, and she's always crying now, one day she was crying over her silver thing you gave her, and kissing it like anything." The "silver thing" was a little heart of about the size of a shilling, which he had bought at Charlton Fair last October, and timidly requested her to accept. John Weare jumped up and showed Bibbs his sword, and carried him on his back all over the place, and entreated him to have more black currants in his delight. But Bibbs declined. "Aunt Jennie's going to bring me some from Fitham to night," he said. So Jennie was going to Eltham, was she? John Weare took Bibbs home, and on his way presented him with a white woolly lamb that moved on wheels and squeaked, and a monkey that went up a stick in being gently pushed. "Crying over her silver thing," said John Weare. "I'll go, and hang about the Eltham road till I see her and beg her pardon." And he went, and Jennie met him, and pouted and declared she hadn't once thought of him, and then broke down and cried. And John begged her pardon, and declared that he had been a heartless brute; and then Jennie contradicted him and said it was all her fault, and told him how Mrs. Dunlop, the colonel's wife, had one day walked in and told her, in the kindest possible manner, that she was spoiling her sister's business, for the ladies who had been interested in her welfare kept away because of Jennie's flirting propensities, which filled up the shop with idle officers, who were always in the way; and how she had been so shamed and wretched and so cut up at the desertion of John Weare, that she had intended to go back to Devonshire. "But you won't now?" he said, as they leaned over the stile leading to the Eltham fields. "You'll get ready at once and we'll be married as soon as possible, before the fruit in the garden is spoiled?" It took a long time to talk her into it (about three quarters of an hour), but then she was very happy at heart, and chattered like a young magpie, and told John how she had snubbed Captain McGee, and had thrown all his flowers out of the window. "And it really was all through that dear Bibbs that you waylaid me to night?" she asked. "Certainly." "Why, but for him I might never have seen you again?" "Perhaps not." "I'll give Bibbs a regular hug when I get home," she thought. And she did, and the day before she was married she bought him a rocking horse, which he delights in to this day.-Century. |