"'Cause it's cold there, too. And we was sent to find sticks."
"If she isn't your sister, who does she belong to?"
"She don't belong to nobody. She lived upstairs, and her mother died, and she came down to us. But she's goin' to be took away. Mother's got five of us, now. She's goin' to the poorhouse. She's a regular little brick, though; ain't yer, Jo?"
The pretty, childish lips that had begun to grow red and lifelike again, parted, and showed little rows of milk teeth, like white shells. The blue eyes and the baby smile went up, confidingly, to the young ragamuffin's face. There had been kindness here. The boy had taken to Jo, it seemed; and was benevolently evincing it, in the best way he could, by teaching her good-natured slang.
"Yes; I'm a little brick," she lisped.
Miss Sampson's keen eyes went from one to the other, resting last and long on Jo.
"I shouldn't wonder," she said, deliberately, "if you was Number Four!"
"Whereabouts do you live?" suddenly, to the boy.
"Three doors round the corner. 'Tain't number four, though. It's ninety-three."
"What's your name?"