“To be sure we did!” said Paul: “she used to rock you in the cradle, and tell me stories. I wasn’t but four then: now I’m eight, and most nine.”
“Was she like Molly?” asked Nora.
“Not a bit! her face was white, and so were her hands,—jolly white. She used to cry, and sew lace.”
“Cry?—a mother cry? What for?”
“Can’t say; hungry, maybe. Sometimes father hit her. But stop talking, can’t you? I want to run down this hill: catch hold.”
As they were walking along the road, at the bottom of the hill, breathing fast from running so hard, they met a wicked-looking man, whose whiskers were black and very heavy. His nose was long, and hooked over at the end. He had a short-waisted coat with a peaked tail. He laughed almost every time he spoke.
When he saw Paul and Nora, he said, “Where are you going, children?—going to take a walk? He, he, he!”
“To pick up bones,” said Paul. “I know a man that buys them.”
“I’ll buy your bones,” said the man, “and give you a good price for them. My shop is in this yellow brick house. Come this evening; come about eight; come to the back-door. Is this your little sister?”
“Yes,” said Paul.