"Because I do not like to leave you with no one but Mrs. Browne to look after you; and I am going away."
"When?" she asked tremulously.
"To-morrow."
She gave an exclamation that sounded like a cry.
He drew her to him.
"Listen, Meg. It will make me very unhappy if I think you are fretting when I am gone. I want my little friend to be brave; she must not fret."
"Where are you going?" she faltered, mastering her emotion.
"I am going to travel and write accounts of what I see, for a newspaper that will pay me very well. It is a great lift for me, Meg, and I want you to have your lift also."
She did not speak, but kept her eyes fixed upon his face. He then gently and guardedly told her that he had got from Mrs. Browne the name of the family solicitor who paid for her keep. He had gone to see him to speak of Meg. The elderly gentleman with the frilled shirt, who had patted her on the head, was the solicitor in question. His name was Mr. Fullbloom. The young man did not tell the child that he had found out how shamefully misapplied by the landlady was the allowance she received, nor did he tell her that he had made in writing a vivid statement of her forlorn and neglected condition in the boarding-house.
He laid as light stress as he could on the refusal of the solicitor to give up the name of the child's mysterious patron.