1] THE SILVER FAIRIES. 115

 

had not been entirely satisfactory to him, having, with
one exception, declined to be reared, and resolutely
died in their infancy. The exception was Polly—
pretty Polly Ricketts, who might have been called ‘the
apple of her father’s eye,’ though somewhat of a crab-
apple, perhaps, from a natural sourness. of disposition,
until she mortally offended her affectionate parent,
first by running away with a journeyman baker, and
then by dying before there had been time for a family
reconciliation. However, as the baker made what
atonement he could by shortly afterwards dying also,
Simon bore up, and not only so, but took home the
infant daughter whom Polly left behind, and brought
her up in his own house.

At the time of our story, little Dorothy Matson—
or Dolly, as she was generally called—was about
seventeen years old, and, both in appearance and be-
haviour, did great credit to old Martha Pattison, who
had presided over Simon’s establishment, ever since
his wife’s death, in the capacity of housekeeper and
general manager of everything about the premises,
Simon himself excepted. Nobody could manage
him, and nobody tried to do so. He went his own
way, and liked everybody else to go theirs, as long
as they did not clash with him. Martha took care
not to do this, and as she was a near relation to
his departed wife, the arrangement answered well
enough both for father and daughter.

Old Simon was not a hard man to live with, pro-
vided nobody went into his Den, and this was what
nobody dared to do unless specially invited. The

Den, as I have already said, was entered by a door
I2