"I know about the Good Samaritan," announced the boy.
Tilda stared.
"I bet yer don't," she contradicted.
"He found a man, a traveller, that some thieves had hurt and left by the road. Going down to Jericho, it was; and he poured oil and wine into his wounds."
"Oh, cheese it!" said Tilda. "Oo's a-kiddin' now? An' see 'ere, Arthur
Miles—it don't matter with me, a lie up or down; I'm on'y Tilda.
But don't you pick up the 'abit, or else you'll annoy me. I can't tell
why ezactly, but it don't sit on you."
"Tilda?" The boy caught up her name like an echo. "Tilda what?"
"The Lord knows. Tilda nothin'—Tilda o' Maggs's, if you like, an' nobody's child, anyway."
"But that isn't possible," he said, after thinking a moment.
"They called me that sometimes, back—back—"
"At the Orph'nige, eh? 'Oo called you that? The Doctor? No," said Tilda hurriedly, as he halted with a shiver, "don't look be'ind; 'e's not anywhere near. An' as for the Good Samaritan, you're wrong about that, too; for 'ere's the Good Samaritan!"
She pointed at the building, and he stared. He could not comprehend at all, but she had switched him off the current of his deadly fear.