'Or cold, no? That's impossible, we've walked so fast. Just take off your things, and I'll see if there's anything in the press. There should be a bit of bread and a morsel of cheese, if that rascal hasn't gobbled them up.'
Gladys sat down, and her eyes wandered over all the great wide room into its shadowy corners, and it was as if the frost of winter settled on her young heart. The old man hung up his coat and hat behind the door, and, opening the press, brought therefrom the half of a stale loaf, a plate on which reposed a microscopic portion of highly-coloured butter, and a scrap of cheese wrapped in paper. These he laid on the bare table, where the dust lay white.
'Eat a mouthful, child, and then we'll get to bed,' he said. 'You'll need to sleep here in my bed to-night, and I'll go to the back room, where there's an old sofa. On Monday I'll get some things, and you can have that room for yourself. Tired, eh?'
Uncle Abel's spirits rose to find himself at home, and the child's sank lower at the prospect stretching out before her.
'No—that is, not very. It seems very long since morning.'
'Ay, it's been a longish day. Never mind; tomorrow's Sunday, and we needn't get up before ten or eleven.'
'Don't you go to church, Uncle Abel?'
'Sometimes in the afternoon, or at night. Oh, there are plenty of churches; they grow as thick as mushrooms, and do about as much good. Won't you eat?'
The fare was not inviting; nevertheless, Gladys did her best to swallow a few morsels, because she really felt faint and weak. It did not occur to the miser that he might kindle a cheerful spark of fire to give her a welcome, and to make her a cup of tea. He was not less cold and hungry himself, it may be believed, but he had long inured himself to such privation, and bore it with an outward semblance of content.
When they had eaten, he busied himself getting an old rug and a pillow from the chest standing across one of the windows, and carried them into the other room, then he bade Gladys get quickly to bed, and not burn the candle too long. He went in the dark himself, and when Gladys heard his footsteps growing fainter in the long passage a great terror took possession of her, the place was so strange, so cold, so unknown. For some time she was even afraid to move, but at last she rose and crossed the floor to the windows, to see whether from them anything friendly or familiar could be seen. But they looked into the street, and had thick iron bars across them, exactly like the windows of a gaol. It was the last straw added to the burden of the unhappy child. Her imagination did not lack in vividness, and a thousand unknown terrors rose up before her terrified eyes. If only from the window she might have looked up to the eyes of the pitying stars, she had been less desolate, less forlorn. A sharp sense of physical cold was the first thing to arouse her, and she took the candle and approached the bed. Now, though they had ever been poor, the artist and his child had kept their surroundings clean and wholesome. In her personal tastes Gladys was as fastidious as the highest lady in the land. She turned down the covering, and when she saw the hue of the linen her lip curled, and she hastily covered it up from sight. In the end, she laid herself down without undressing above the bed, spreading a clean handkerchief for her head to rest upon; and so, worn-out, she slept at last an untroubled and dreamless sleep, in which she forgot for many hours her forlorn and friendless state.