3-008-595 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

"The Wanderer", by J. Clark, 1862. Engraving of a painting. '...absorbed with her little pet kitten, and perhaps led astray by its gambols and friskings, she has, like "a naughty little puss" herself, wandered from her village home into the neighbouring thicket till, sitting down quite tired out, and looking around, she begins to find that everything is strange and unfamiliar! In her vague sense of being helpless and unprotected she hugs her little playmate, and makes it nestle more closely in her lap; and she must, perforce, begin to whimper herself, though she as yet hardly knows why. But "what great lady and gentleman, so unlike father and mother, are these"? says Miss Toddlekins to herself, as with awe and shyness she has recourse to the fore-finger familiar to her under such circumstances. A shadowy consciousness of doing wrong seems to be brought to her mind by such wondrous visitants. And what charming studies of character are this father and daughter, going perhaps to, or coming from, church! If one could not see her amiable face, you could tell that the daughter is a sweet, unaffected, good-natured girl, from the frank way in which she goes down to question the little wanderer regardless of the consequences to her dress'. From "Illustrated London News", 1862.