"Has every child got a mammy?" persisted Meg, with deliberate plainness of speech.
"Of course they have," answered the old woman, utterly bewildered.
"Is madam my mammy?" asked the child, a slight tremor perceptible in the slower and deeper intonation of her voice.
"Madam" was the name by which she had been taught to call Mrs. Browne.
"No!" answered Tilly sharply; "and if you ask any more questions ye'll be put into the dark closet."
The threat, that brought to the child's mind associations of terror, wrought the desired effect of silence. She stood, with her glance unflinchingly directed on Tilly's face, and with a question trembling on her lips, until the old servant turned away and left the kitchen.
Hitherto Meg had never asked a question concerning herself. She had accepted a childhood without kissings and pettings—a snubbed, ignored childhood—with a child's sainted powers of patience and resignation.
That night, as the old woman was composing herself to sleep in the attic that she shared with the child, she was startled by Meg's voice sounding close to her ear, and, turning, she saw the diminutive figure standing near her bed in the moonlight.
"Tilly," she said, "I don't mind your locking me up in the dark closet, if you'll just tell me—is my mammy dead?"
"Yes," said Tilly, taken off her guard.