"Be quick, Eth—Miss Lake, or you'll forget it again."
She laughed rather bitterly. "Oh, I never forget. I can't!" she said. "I wish I could. Your name is James Stone, and Jimbo is 'short' for James. Now you know."
She might just as well have said Bill Sykes for all the boy knew or remembered.
"What a silly name!" he laughed. "But it can't be my real name, or I should know it. I never heard it before." After a moment he added, "Am I an old man? I feel just like one. I suppose I'm grown up—grown up so fast that I've forgotten what came before——"
"You're not grown up, dear, at least, not exactly——" She glanced down at his alpaca knickerbockers and brown stockings; and as he followed her eyes and saw the dirty buttoned-boots there came into his mind some dim memory of where he had last put them on, and of some one who had helped him. But it all passed like a swift meteor across the dark night of his forgetfulness and was lost in mist.
"You mustn't judge by these silly clothes," he laughed. "I shall change them as soon as I get—as soon as I can find——" He stopped short. No words came. A feeling of utter loneliness and despair swept suddenly over him, drenching him from head to foot. He felt lost and friendless, naked, homeless, cold. He was ever on the brink of regaining a whole lot of knowledge and experience that he had known once long ago, ever so long ago, but it always kept just out of his reach. He glanced at Miss Lake, feeling that she was his only possible comfort in a terrible situation. She met his look and drew him tenderly towards her.
"Now, listen to me," she said gently, "I've something to tell you—about myself."
He was all attention in a minute.
"I am a discharged governess," she began, holding her breath when once the words were out.
"Discharged!" he repeated vaguely. "What's that? What for?"