"My calling is, as you will soon hear at Norton Bury, that of a tanner. I am apprentice to Abel Fletcher—Phineas's father."
"Mr. Fletcher!" She looked up at me—a mingled look of kindliness and pain.
"Ay, Phineas is a little less beneath your notice than I am. He is rich—he has been well educated; I have had to educate myself. I came to Norton Bury six years ago—a beggar-boy. No, not quite that—for I never begged! I either worked or starved."
The earnestness, the passion of his tone, made Miss March lift her eyes, but they fell again.
"Yes, Phineas found me in an alley—starving. We stood in the rain, opposite the mayor's house. A little girl—you know her, Miss March—came to the door, and threw out to me a bit of bread."
Now indeed she started. "You—was that you?"
"It was I."
John paused, and his whole manner changed into softness, as he resumed. "I never forgot that little girl. Many a time, when I was inclined to do wrong, she kept me right—the remembrance of her sweet face and her kindness."
That face was pressed down against the sofa where she sat. I think Miss March was all but weeping.
John continued.