"Johann! Don't strike me," she exclaimed, with her eyes half closed. "I----"
"My poor girl, no one shall beat you. Will you come with me?"
"With you?" repeated Jessica, now fully awake, but still eyeing the Sister with some suspicion. "Where? Not far?"
"No, not far. But why do you say that? Is there any one you particularly wish to be near?"
"No," replied Jessica, adding to herself, as the sister of Mercy took her hand, "but she shall not take me far away from him."
"A roof of thatch is better than that of heaven," is an old Spanish proverb, and means, doubtless, that the poorest accommodation is better than none, or that which the streets provide. Jessica, clinging to the Sister of Mercy's succouring hand, was gently led from the silence of the streets to the still greater silence of an attic in a quiet byway.
Here, seated by the remains of a small fire in a narrow grate, she watched with awkward interest, that was much like indifference, the efforts of her rescuer to revive the dying embers. Soup was warmed for her, but for a time she refused to take it.
"I am not hungry," she said. "Only tired--so tired! Why did you wake me, lady?"
"I awoke you because you were unhappy, and it was dangerous for one so young as you to lie asleep in the streets," replied the meek-eyed woman. "But you must not call me 'lady'; I am not a lady. Call me 'Sister.'"
"But you are not my sister," said Jessica petulantly. "I haven't any sister or brother, or father or mother."