The landlady entered, and inquired:
“Where will you have this set, Miss Miller?”
“In my chamber,” replied Eudora, in a startled voice, like one suddenly roused from a dream.
Our landlady looked wistfully at her, and after depositing the box in a corner of the bed-room, she came back, and in a motherly manner took Eudora by the hand, and made her sit down again in the arm-chair, while she stood by her and said:
“Now, don’t ye take on so, that’s a darling! Sure we’ve all got to lose our parents, unless we ourselves die afore our time. I’ve lost my mother and father; yes, and the father of my thirteen children, too! And I don’t take on about it! Sure if I did the house would go to ruin and the children to the union! And then there’s that poor child up-stairs, with a father as is worse nor dead, coming home every night drunk, and beating and starving her nearly to death! Why, she don’t take on, but is as merry as a monkey, with her lantern jaws and large eyes. And more be token, if it wasn’t for the child, I’d ha’ sent the father packing long ago, which he has never paid me the first penny of rent for his rooms the six weeks he has been here, and swears at me when I ask him for it! So you see, dear, everybody has their own troubles in this world, but for all that we musn’t take on about it, but must do the best we can for ourselves and each other too. Now I make no doubt you would be the greatest of blessings to that young girl up-stairs, and she’d be the best of amusement to you! She’d take you off your sorrows; she’s the liveliest, queerest, funniest—There, that’s her now! Listen!”
At this moment a bounding step was heard upon the stairs, and a carolling voice broke forth in song:
“I care for nobody—no, not I!
And nobody cares for me!”
as the singing-girl vanished up into the upper stories of the house.
“There! that’s her! she’s always just like that! Now it’s ten to one as that child will have any dinner this day, yet listen how she sings like a lark! Shall I go and fetch her down to you? She’d be a world of entertainment to you!”