"I know," said Michael, the choking sensation rising again in his throat.
"She'd talk away to us girls, that wee mite,—my! You never heard anything like it. The veriest little chatterbox, yet with such wisdom in her words too. Oh, it would be terrible if she should die! It would just break her mother's heart."
"Ay, it would," said Michael, thinking sorrowfully how heavy a burden of guilt and remorse would rest on his conscience if the little one were taken. "She's a gentle-hearted lady, is Mrs. Lavers."
"She's the dearest lady in the world!" cried the girl fervently. "Ah, I can never tell you what she has been to me. Do you know what it is to have a friend that helps you to be good, a friend who you know would do anything for you, and for whom you'd do anything, even die, if need be? Well, she's such a friend to me."
Michael could only listen in wonder. He had never had such a friend; he had never felt such warm, passionate love as the girl's words expressed.
"Have you no one belonging to you?" he asked. "No mother or father?"
"Ay, I've a father," she said; "but he's a poor creature, my father, always weak and ailing. It's me has to take care of him, and not he, of me. I've took care of him ever since my mother died, eight years ago. It seems sometimes almost as if I were the parent, and he the child. Men are helpless creatures, you know. But here we are in the square. Now, which is the doctor's house?"
Happily the doctor was at home when Michael arrived at the house. After waiting some minutes, Michael was able to see him, but, to his despair, the busy physician was not to be persuaded to come with him at once. He had engagements which prevented his doing so, he said; but he listened patiently to all Michael could tell him about the little child, and promised that he would see her during the afternoon. Michael went away with his hopes somewhat dashed.
The girl drove back with him to his house. She sprang out there and helped him to alight, stood by his side as he settled with the driver, and then saw him safely down the stone steps to the door of the shop. She did it with a careful, almost motherly air, which seemed strange for so young a girl. Evidently she was used to taking care of others. Michael invited her to enter his house, but she declined resolutely.
"No, thank you," she said; "it's high time I went home to look after father. He'll be wondering what has become of me. If you like, I'll come round and tell you how she is this evening, after that doctor has seen her, you know. You ought not to go out again to-day, Mr. Betts; it's a bitter cold wind."