“To be my guardian? I’ll tell you, sir. I suppose you know that we come (my sister and I) from Ceylon?”
“Indeed, no.”
“I wonder at that. We lived with a stepfather there. Our mother died there, when we were little children. We have had a wretched existence. She made him our guardian, and he was a miserly wretch who grudged us food to eat, and clothes to wear. At his death, he passed us over to this man; for no better reason that I know of, than his being a friend or connexion of his, whose name was always in print and catching his attention.”
“That was lately, I suppose?”
“Quite lately, sir. This stepfather of ours was a cruel brute as well as a grinding one. It is well he died when he did, or I might have killed him.”
Mr. Crisparkle stopped short in the moonlight and looked at his hopeful pupil in consternation.
“I surprise you, sir?” he said, with a quick change to a submissive manner.
“You shock me; unspeakably shock me.”
The pupil hung his head for a little while, as they walked on, and then said: “You never saw him beat your sister. I have seen him beat mine, more than once or twice, and I never forgot it.”
“Nothing,” said Mr. Crisparkle, “not even a beloved and beautiful sister’s tears under dastardly ill-usage;” he became less severe, in spite of himself, as his indignation rose; “could justify those horrible expressions that you used.”