CHAPTER XIII.
DICKIE'S ATTIC.
HEN Mrs. Seymour had placed the tired little Cherry in her own nice bed, and had made Miss Hobson understand in a few words who it was who would be found in the morning sharing her room, she returned to the next floor and looked round.
In the bedroom Meg and Dickie slept the sleep of the utterly weary, and leaving them for a moment she went to look after her son Jem.
He too slept soundly, though he had not undressed, but lay covered by a blanket on the sofa.
The clock on the mantel-piece pointed to two, the fire was out, and the room desolate.
Making her own determination, but leaving it for the present for fear of disturbing Jem, she went back to Meg. She stood by the side of the little cot and gazed long and earnestly at the face of her grandchild.
Her grandchild! How she had longed to welcome it! how she had counted on hearing its little feet patter about in her room! how she had yearned to see her Jem with his child on his knee!
Instead of that, a dead baby lay in the cradle; and in Meg's embrace slept a little stranger child, taken, as it were, out of the very gutter; and in Jem's arms had stood a little cripple, who might be a care to him all his days.