The next minute he and the child were gone. Then began a buzz of talk and wonderment, and Madge cleared away the supper-things with her head so full of other thoughts that she nearly put the cheese into the bread-pan and the loaf away on the same dish with the bacon.
CHAPTER IV.
HELP IN NEED.
AS Mr. Kayll and Amy Coleson walked towards Bacton, the little girl found her voice, and talked away fast enough in a sober old-fashioned way.
“We live in lodgings, you know, and we owe lots of rent, but Mrs. Smith is so kind, and says she doesn’t mind waiting a bit longer, and she knows we’ll pay it as soon as we can; and sometimes she brings us a little beef-tea for baby, only not very often, because mother don’t much like it, and she don’t let her know how poor we are. Mother can’t bear for anyone to know. When father was alive it was quite different. I remember it very well; we lived at Barnes then, and there was only Kitty beside me until a little while after father died, and then baby came. She’s such a dear little thing with light yellow hair, and talks as plainly as I do nearly, and so patient—oh, she is so patient! But she can’t walk. We’ve tried so hard to teach her to walk, and once when she was stronger she nearly could, but then she got weaker afterwards and forgot it all again.”
Mr. Kayll was silently musing over this, noticing how the child always said “we,” as though she and her mother went together in everything, when a kind of sniff made him look down, and the light from the next gaslamp showed him that his little companion was quietly crying.
“Don’t do that, my dear,” he said kindly. “What’s the use? We’ll hope that the worst of your troubles are over now, though I don’t know that I can help you much. Still, I’ll do what I can.”
Amy hastened to dry her wet eyes, as though ashamed of the tears, gulped down a sob, and in a few minutes spoke as cheerfully as at first.
“You all looked so happy and so bright and comfortable at your home. Such a lot of you, too! It must be nice to have brothers. And that big girl, too; I did like her.”
They walked on again without talking. Mr. Kayll would almost have forgotten his little friend but for the hand holding so tightly to his, and all the more tightly when they met some noisy party of men arm in arm, shouting and singing as they came.