He was then taken into the parlour to be inspected in his new
clothes; and then was shown the garden and his little room, and when the
old gentleman had said all he had to say in the way of promise and advice,
and Kit had said all he had to say in the way of assurance and
thankfulness, he was handed over again to the old lady, who, summoning the
little servant-girl (whose name was Barbara), instructed her to take him
downstairs and give him something to eat and drink after his walk.
From that time Kit's was a useful, pleasant life, moving on in a peaceful
routine of duties and innocent joys from day to day, and from week to
week,--until the great, longed-for epoch of his life arrived--the day of
receiving, for the first time, one-fourth part of his annual income of Six
Pounds. It was to be a half-holiday, devoted to a whirl of entertainments,
and little Jacob was to know what oysters meant, and to see a play.
The day arrived, and wasn't Mr. Garland kind when he said to
him,--"Christopher, here's your money, and you have earned it
well;"--which praise in itself was worth as much as his wages.
Then the play itself! The horses which little Jacob believed from the
first to be alive,--and the ladies and gentlemen, of whose reality he
could be by no means persuaded, having never seen or heard anything at all
like them--the firing, which made Barbara (who had a holiday too)
wink--the forlorn lady who made her cry--the tyrant who made her
tremble--the clown who ventured on such familiarities with the military
man in boots--the lady who jumped over the nine-and-twenty ribbons and
came down safe upon the horse's back--everything was delightful, splendid,
and surprising! Little Jacob applauded until his hands were sore; Kit
cried "an-kor" at the end of everything; and Barbara's mother beat her
umbrella on the floor, in her ecstasies, until it was nearly worn down to
the gingham.
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