Chapter 15

Not that Herminia had not at times hard struggles and sore
temptations. One of the hardest and sorest came when Dolly was
about six years old. And this was the manner of it.

One day the child who was to reform the world was returning from
some errand on which her mother had sent her, when her attention was
attracted by a very fine carriage, stopping at a door not far from
their lodgings. Now Dolly had always a particular weakness for
everything "grand;" and so grand a turn-out as this one was rare in
their neighborhood. She paused and stared hard at it. "Whose is it,
Mrs. Biggs?" she asked awe-struck of the friendly charwoman, who
happened to pass at the moment,--the charwoman who frequently came
in to do a day's cleaning at her mother's lodging-house. Mrs. Biggs
knew it well; "It's Sir Anthony Merrick's," she answered in that
peculiarly hushed voice with which the English poor always utter the
names of the titled classes. And so in fact it was; for the famous
gout doctor had lately been knighted for his eminent services in
saving a royal duke from the worst effects of his own
self-indulgence. Dolly put one fat finger to her lip, and elevated
her eyebrows, and looked grave at once. Sir Anthony Merrick! What a
very grand gentleman he must be indeed, and how nice it must seem to
be able to drive in so distinguished a vehicle with a liveried
footman.

As she paused and looked, lost in enjoyment of that beatific
vision, Sir Anthony himself emerged from the porch. Dolly took a
good stare at him. He was handsome, austere, close-shaven,
implacable. His profile was clear-cut, like Trajan's on an aureus.
Dolly thought that was just how so grand a gentleman ought to look;
and, so thinking, she glanced up at him, and with a flash of her
white teeth, smiled her childish approval. The austere old
gentleman, unwontedly softened by that cherub face,--for indeed she
was as winsome as a baby angel of Raphael's,--stooped down and
patted the bright curly head that turned up to him so trustfully.
"What's your name, little woman?" he asked, with a sudden wave of
gentleness.

And Dolly, all agog at having arrested so grand an old gentleman's
attention, spoke up in her clear treble, "Dolores Barton."

Sir Anthony started. Was this a trap to entangle him? He was born
suspicious, and he feared that woman. But he looked into Dolly's
blue eyes of wonder, and all doubt fled from him. Was it blood?
was it instinct? was it unconscious nature? At any rate, the
child seemed to melt the grandfather's heart as if by magic. Long
years after, when the due time came, Dolly remembered that melting.
To the profound amazement of the footman, who stood with the