“And all this you have resisted, good fellow, with your heart choking in your mouth?”
“I have so desired—indeed, I have so desired, sir, to be thought clean and honest; and when your dislike fell upon me, I despaired of convincing you how I was no partner to any roguery; and the hopelessness of explaining wrought upon me till I half seemed to myself the very distrustful knave of your suspicions.”
“It is changed—it is all changed. We will circumvent the rascals, and net them in the toils of their own weaving.”
The servant bent forward, his fevered eyes sparkling.
“Such dear confidence as I have sickened for!” he cried. “To look upon your face, and see the bold light break from it, and know I am trusted and believed in!”
“That shall be so, Dennis. Now, one thing, I mind me, you have made no mention of—your sister.”
“She was brought to me, sir, the first year of my care-keeping, and here, by Mr. Creel’s permission, she remained.”
“Brought to you? Whence, and by Whom?”
The answer was near inaudible:
“By a woman that juggled in a travelling show. They had thought to use the mite to a like trade, but her wits ran crooked with their wants, and they were glad to be quit of an encumbrance. She was a natural from the first—a queer, wild midget that was for ever wandering by down and fell and storing, like a magpie, her pitiful wreck of treasures. She was but a snip of five or so when she brought that home—that home—oh, sir! the horrible gallows-tree, that I never dared within eyeshot of, but would walk a mile to avoid.”