The boy was hushed into silence by her solemn earnestness.
"He is weak, Grif, and we are poor. It was otherwise once. Those who should assist us will not do so, unless I break the holiest tie--and so we must suffer together."
"I don't see why you should suffer," said Grif, doggedly; "you don't deserve to suffer, you don't."
"Did you ever have a friend, my poor Grif," the girl said, "whom you loved, and for whose sake you would have sacrificed even the few sweets of life you have enjoyed?"
Grif pondered, but being unable to come to any immediate conclusion upon the point, did not reply.
"It is so with me," Alice continued. "I would sacrifice everything for him and for his happiness: for I love him! Ah! how I love him! When he is away from me he loses hope for my sake, not for his own, I know. If he is weak, I must be strong. It is my duty."
She loved him. Yes. No thought that he might be unworthy of the sacrifice she had already made for him tainted the purity of her love, or weakened her sense of duty.
"I've got a dawg, Ally," Grif said, musingly, after a pause. "He ain't much to look at, but he's very fond of me. Rough is his name. The games we have together, me and Rough! He's like a brother to me, is Rough. I often wonder what he can see in me, to be so fond of me--but then they say dawgs ain't got no sense, and that's a proof of it. But if he ain't got sense, he got somethin' as good. Pore old Rough! One day a cove was agoin' to make a rush at me--it was the Tenderhearted Oysterman (we always had a down on each other, him and me!) when Rough, he pounces in, and gives him a nip in the calf of his leg. Didn't the Oysterman squeal! He swore, that day, that he would kill the dawg; but he'd better not try! Kill Rough!" and, at the thought of it, the tears came into the boy's eyes; "and him never to rub his nose agin me any more, after all the games we've had! No, I shouldn't like to lose Rough, for he's a real friend to me, though he is only a dawg!"
The girl laid her hand upon Grif's head, and looked pityingly at him. As their eyes met, a tender expression stole into his face, and rested there.
"I'm very sorry for you, Ally. I wish I could do somethin' to make you happy. It doesn't much matter for a pore beggar like me. We was always a bad lot, was father, and Dick, and me. But you!--look here, Ally!" he exclaimed, energetically. "If ever you want me to do anythin'--never mind what it is long as I know I'm a-doin' of it for you--I'll do it, true and faithful, I will, so 'elp me--!" Her hand upon his lips checked the oath he was about to utter. He seized the hand, and placed it over his eyes, and leant his cheek against it, as if it brought balm and comfort to him; as indeed it did. "You believe me, Ally, don't you?" he continued, eagerly. "I don't want you to say nothin' more than if ever I can do somethin' for you, you'll let me do it."