“He is a gintleman, every inch of him,” answered Margaret, giving the child an enthusiastic hug, while her ardent temperament caught fire at this prophecy of a grand fortune. “It’s meself that has been particular regarding his manners, never letting him run out in the sun or make dirt-pies, or pick up oyster-shells from the gutter, wid the common. See if he isn’t white an’ clane as a dove—the crathur—neck an’ all, wid reverence to ye.”
Here Mary Margaret jerked down the little fellow’s calico frock in front, exhibiting a plump, snowy neck, softly flushed like a shell that has just left the water, and a pair of dimpled shoulders, from which the short sleeves were gathered up by bows of faded pink ribbon.
“Wouldn’t any gintleman be proud of the like of that for a child of his own, now?” she continued, uttering her words between the kisses that she lavished on the white neck and shoulders, leaving a flush with every touch. “Thank ye, kindly, for giving him to me and the childer for one night more; it’s like sending a lost bird to its nest agin. God’s blessings on ye!”
Thus, half in tears, and half grateful, Mrs. Dillon made her way through the hungry crowd, that even in its misery cast admiring glances after the child, and walked homeward. Striving to reconcile herself to the inevitable with resolute philosophy, but with a swell of grief at heart, which threatened every moment to break into a deluge of tears, she presented little Edward to his foster-brothers and playfellows once more. She informed them, a little crossly, for her true sorrow would break forth in some shape, that it was only for a night, and after that Eddie would be made a gintleman of entirely, and that “if he was going up among the common childer, it was only for convanience like, and after a while would be traiting ’em all with great civility, and bowing to ’em from his carriage-windy.”
Her young brood took this information rather shyly, and Terry, who had been like a twin-brother to the little orphan, rebelled at once, vociferously protesting that he would go with Eddie and be a gintleman, too. But at length young Ireland was consoled with a promise, that perhaps he might yet ride behind the carriage which Eddie was undoubtedly to occupy, while the dear little fellow himself underwent a world of caresses, and was hushed to sleep with many a smothered sob.
CHAPTER XLII.
THE ADOPTED SON.
The next day Mrs. Dillon stood at the ferry at Randell’s Island, looking wistfully back toward the spot where she had just left the ewe lamb of her flock. Her face was red with weeping, and from time to time she lifted up a corner of her shawl and wiped the drops from her eyes. Little Terry set up a pathetic howl, as the boat which had brought them over put back on its return voyage. Mary Margaret had no heart to chide him, but turned sorrowfully away, grieved to the soul as few mothers would have been.
And there sat poor little Edward where he had been left, like a lost babe in all that wilderness of young life; all alone, and yet surrounded by so many. The very size of the nursery building terrified him. The crowd of strange faces hushed his grief into dumb silence. The nurses seemed like enemies that intended him some bodily harm, and from whom he would run away the moment their backs were turned.
The child looked up to impart these thoughts to his foster-mother, and she was gone. He searched wildly around; his innocent eyes grew large with affright; his mouth and chin began to quiver; and his poor little hands were pressed hard down upon the bench where they had seated him. That baby-struggle was a pitiful thing to witness. That tiny form, taking up its first battle of life, with no weapons but its terror and its tears, was touching beyond description.
When he saw that she was gone, and that he was quite alone in that forest of human beings, the wild eyes began to fill, his face flushed, and sobs of home-sick anguish heaved his chest. A group of little orphans, who had learned to keep their sorrows in silence, cast shy glances at him from the benches; while he, with a child’s instincts, looked wistfully at them through his tears, expecting the sympathy which they felt but could not express.