The equally astonished boy started up, and stared half wistfully, half fearfully, at the figure standing before him.
“Is it you, Salome? I did not know you.”
“How came you here? When did you leave the Asylum?”
“I ran away, three days ago.”
“Why?”
“Because I was tired of living there, and I wanted to come back home.”
“Home, indeed! You miserable begger, don’t you know you have no home but the Orphan Asylum?”
“Yes, I have. I want to come back yonder. Don’t you see home yonder, among the trees, with the pretty white and speckled pigeons flying over it?”
He pointed across the pond to the old house beyond the mill, whose outlines were visible through the openings in the elms; and, as he gazed upon it with that intense longing so touching in a child’s face, his sobs increased.
“Stanley, that is not your home now. Other people live 40 there, and you have no right to come back. Why did you run away from the Asylum? Did they treat you unkindly?”