"Where is your mother?" asked the doctor.
Bert stared for a moment ere he replied,—
"We ain't got none. Our mother died ever so long ago; before I can remember."
"Then who is the woman I have always seen with you?"
"You mean Mrs. Kay. She's out just now, sir."
"Then Mrs. Kay takes care of you, I suppose?"
"Yes," said Bert, with considerable hesitation, however; "she does when—"
"When she is not drunk," he had been about to say, but he checked himself. He was not willing to expose the failings of one who during the last few days had proved herself so kind a neighbour.
"You have a father, of course?" said the gentleman.
"No, sir, not now," replied Bert; "he died in the hospital last summer."