"Give it to me! I'll pawn it for you," rejoined Meg, intent and business-like. "I've been there before. Last time Mrs. Browne put the silver teapot up the spout I went for her. She was tipsy; she could not go. The man knows me. He'll give me the money."
"I have not the heart to do it Meg—I have not the heart," said Mr. Standish, hesitating as the child approached.
"It's better than having the man inside your room, sitting on your green velvet armchair or the chintz sofa, taking the silver ink-bottle and the books, and preventing your working," continued Meg, pressing her advantage; and as Mr. Standish began slowly to unloose the chain, her deft fingers came to the rescue and helped him.
He looked down at the eager, determined child-face. "How good you are to me, Meg; how good!" he said, the words rushing almost unconsciously to his lips.
A quiver of the eyelids only showed the child felt the tones. "Give it to me," she repeated imperatively.
The next moment the watch and chain, wrapped in a clean pocket-handkerchief, were in Meg's grasp, and she had departed. Mr. Standish, stooping under the shelving ceiling on a level with the strip of window, looked out and watched the wet umbrella making its way under the flaring gas and over the muddy street. When it disappeared he turned and looked about him. There was a sincerity, a poverty, a purity about the tiny chamber that affected him with a wholesome shock. Over the little white bed hung the fashion-plate that he had mended, in the pasteboard frame he had manufactured for it. A bit of scarlet ribbon fastened it to a nail, with an elaborate bow. Above it, as a pious Catholic might have crossed about some saint's image branches of blessed palms, so Meg had placed sprigs of lavender, that delicately scented the room. On the peg behind the door hung the little Sunday frock, turned inside out. On a table, under a clean pocket-handkerchief, were placed three books that he had given her—a volume of ballads, "Stories from the History of England," a gaudily illustrated shilling copy of "Cinderella." Also under the pocket-handkerchief was a bundle of paper, tied with scarlet ribbon, that proved to be some of his articles neatly cut out. A black clay pipe of his, which Meg had mended, was put up like a little Indian idol over the table. The little room, so spotlessly clean, and so characteristic in all its details, was distinctly Meg's room, telling of that mystic love for her mother, and of her solitary friendship.
Mr. Standish was not tired of waiting when Meg appeared, her hand clutching the bodice of her dress.
"Here, I've got the money," she said, as carefully pulling out the handkerchief and opening it she displayed a roll covered with paper; "twenty-five pounds—count; and here's the ticket. Don't lose it on any account. Perhaps I'd better keep it for you."
"Twenty-five pounds, Meg!" said Mr. Standish.
"He wanted to give me twenty. I said 'No, twenty-five.' He was smiling when he said twenty. Those men always smile when they want to cheat you," said Meg, with a nod of retrospective observation. "He gave me twenty-five pounds at last, though. Count."