"No; they are poor orphans I found in the street crying for their mothers. It helps me in my desolation to have them to think and work for. That is why I have come to Miss Celandine. I think she may give me something to do, I care not what. Anything to keep these from starving, and me—in another way."
"Perhaps you can help her in caring for the wounded."
"I fear I have no skill for it. I am not like Anna Hanum, whom you may have seen, and who is to Miss Celandine as another hand."
Jack remembered, with a pang, that he himself owed Baron Thomassian money, which he had no means of repaying. Other people dropped in gradually, to wait for Miss Celandine, and began to comment upon her long delay.
"Amaan! Something fresh must have happened," they said. Of course they meant some fresh calamity. What else could happen there?
At last food was brought in, great dishes of pillav and of soup, with bread—meat there was none.
"I would Miss Celandine were here," Madame Thomassian said to Jack. "She will not have tasted food since the early morning. Only that God gives her strength, for our sakes, she would have been dead long ago."
Presently there was a stir amongst them all.
"Here she comes," passed from lip to lip.
She came, but not alone. Her arm was around the waist of a tall, slender girl, who but for its support might have fallen to the ground. Another girl, much younger, clung to her side, and two boys followed, the elder carrying in his arms his little brother, a child of three. Her wasted, sorrow-stricken face was lit up with a glow almost of triumph.