"I heard you sing yesterday, and want to tell you how much I liked your voice."
"Thank you, ma'am, I——"
A spell of coughing interrupted, and she noticed how wan and weary he looked, and how heavy were the greyish shadows under his lovely eyes.
"I am afraid you are not well to-day. Are you an orphan?"
"Oh, no. Mother is living, and she says a mother is worth forty fathers."
"Will you tell me her name, and where she lives?"
"Mrs. Nona Dane, and she has the glove counter at ——, Fourteenth Street."
At this instant the floor-walker strode forward, and a frightened expression crossed the boy's white face as he turned quickly, but Eglah laid a detaining hand on his head as, rising, she confronted the floor-walker.
"If he loitered it is not his fault; I kept him. If he missed a call I am to blame. Good-bye, Leighton; shake hands. When I come back to New York I hope to hear you sing again at St. Hyacinth's; and if I miss you here, I shall buy elsewhere."
His hot fingers quivered in her clasp, and, pressing a folded bill into his hand, she joined her foster-mother and left the store.