hexam, the riverman who had found the body floating in the thames, made a living by watching in his boat for drowned bodies, and getting any rewards that might be offered for finding them. he had two children—a daughter, lizzie, who used to row the boat for him, and a younger son, charley.

lizzie was a beautiful girl and a good daughter, and she never ceased to beseech her father to quit this ghastly business. she saved every cent she could get to give her brother some schooling, and kept urging the boy until he left home and became a teacher in a respectable school. for her own part she chose to stay by her father, hoping, in spite of[pg 333] her hatred of his calling, to make him sometime something better.

the night hexam found the body the lawyers who had the harmon will in charge came to his house to see about it. one of them, a careless young man by the name of eugene wrayburn, was greatly struck with the beauty of lizzie, and pitied her because of the life she was obliged to live, and this interest in her made him even more deeply interested in the case of the odd will and the strange murder.

now mr. and mrs. boffin, since they were rich, had offered a great reward for the arrest of the murderer of john harmon. to get this reward and at the same time to avenge himself on his old partner hexam for casting him off, rogue riderhood went to the lawyers and declared that it was hexam himself who had really killed the man whose body he had found. riderhood swore that hexam had confessed the crime to him.

wrayburn, knowing what a shock this charge against her father would be for lizzie, went with the officers sent to seize him. but they made no arrest, for that night hexam himself was drowned by accidentally falling from his own boat.

but the false charge against him lay heavy on lizzie's mind. she hated the river and all that was connected with it, and soon found herself a decent lodging in another part of london.

here she lived with a weird little dwarf of a[pg 334] girl, so deformed that she could scarcely walk at all.

"i can't get up," she used to say to strangers, "because my back's bad and my legs are queer."

she had an odd face, with sharp gray eyes, and her wits were sharper yet. she worked at the strangest trade in the world. she had visiting cards on which was printed:

miss jennie wren

dolls' dressmaker

dolls attended at their own residence

she was really and truly a dolls' dressmaker and sat all day long making tiny frocks out of silk and ribbon. every evening she would hobble out to the door of the theater or of a house where a ball was going on and wait until a lady came out in a beautiful costume; then she would take careful note of it and go home and dress a doll just like it. she even made a minister doll, in clerical collar and surplice, and used to rent him out for doll weddings.

but in spite of her trade she disliked children, because the rude ones of the neighborhood called her names through her keyhole and mimicked her bent back and crooked legs.[pg 335]

"don't talk to me of children," she often said; "i know their tricks and their manners!" and when she said this she would make a fierce little jab in the air with her needle, as if she were putting out somebody's eyes.

jennie wren had a miserable drunkard of a father, whom she called her "troublesome child."

"he is enough to break his mother's heart," she would say when he staggered in. "i wish i had never brought him up. ugh! you muddling, disgraceful, prodigal old son! i can't bear to look at you. go into your corner this minute." and the wretched creature, whining and maudlin, would shuffle into his corner in disgrace, not daring to disobey her.

the odd little dolls' dressmaker was cheerful and merry with all her trials and loved lizzie hexam very much. wrayburn, the young lawyer, used to come to see them, but she did not approve of him. she saw almost before lizzie did herself that the latter was falling in love with wrayburn, and the wise little creature feared that this would only bring pain to lizzie, because she was an uneducated girl and wrayburn a gentleman, who, when he married, would be expected to marry a lady far above lizzie's station. lizzie knew this, too, but she could not help loving wrayburn, and as for the lawyer, he thought nothing of what the outcome might be.

meanwhile lizzie's brother charley, for whom[pg 336] she had worked so hard, was doing well at school, but now that he was getting up in the world he had turned out to be a selfish boy and was afraid that his sister might draw him down.

one day he came to visit her, bringing with him the master of his school. the master's name was headstone. he was a gloomy, passionate, revengeful man who dressed always in black and had no friends. unfortunately enough, the first time he saw lizzie he fell in love with her. it was unfortunate in more ways than one, for lizzie disliked him greatly, and he was, as it proved, a man who would stop at nothing—not even at the worst of crimes—to attain an object.

when lizzie's brother found headstone wanted to marry her, in his selfishness he saw only what a fine thing it would be for himself, and when she refused, he said many harsh things and finally left her in anger, telling her she was no longer a sister of his.

this was not the worst either, for she knew headstone had been made almost angry by her dislike, and she was in dreadful fear lest he do harm to eugene wrayburn, whom he suspected she loved.

in her anxiety lizzie left her lodging with the dolls' dressmaker, and found employment in a paper-mill in a village on the river, some miles from london, letting neither wrayburn nor headstone know where she had gone.[pg 337]

the schoolmaster imagined that the lawyer (whom he now hated with a deadly hatred) knew where she was, and in order to discover if he visited her he began to dog the other's footsteps. at night, after teaching all day in school, headstone would lie in wait outside the lawyer's door and whenever he came out would follow him.

wrayburn soon discovered this and delighted to fool his enemy. every night he would take a new direction and lead his pursuer for hours about the city. so that in a few weeks headstone became almost insane with murderous anger and disappointment.

so things went on for a long while. lizzie continued to love eugene wrayburn, who kept trying in every way to find her. headstone, the schoolmaster, kept watching him and meditating evil. the little dolls' dressmaker worked on cheerily every day in the city, and in their fine house mr. and mrs. boffin grew fonder and fonder of miss bella, whom john rokesmith, the secretary, thought more beautiful every day.