“Since that time we have lived about in London lodgings, but never in any lodgings, Mrs. Corder, where I have been so happy as I have been here with you,” said the poor girl, with grateful tears swimming in her eyes.
“Hum! I can easily comprehend that; I’ve never pressed the captain for his rent, which I don’t suppose his other landladies has been so forbearing,” thought the good woman; but instead of expressing such a thought, she said, kindly:
“Well, child, having so many fatherless children of my own, it came natural to me to try to make a motherless girl comfortable; for, as I often says to myself, suppose my children had been motherless, for though it is bad enough to be fatherless, it is ten thousand times worse to be motherless, as every orphan child knows. So now, my dear, I think, as you are determined to finish your book before you go to bed, the sooner I go and leave you to do it the better. And so good-night, my dear.”
“Good-night, dear, good Mrs. Corder,” replied the young girl, warmly pressing the kind hand that was extended to her.
And the worthy landlady took up her candle and went up a third flight of stairs to the attic, where she slept with her numerous progeny in quarters nearly as close as those of the fabulous “old woman that lived in a shoe, and had so many children she didn’t know what to do.”
CHAPTER IX.
THE CHAMBER OF DEATH.
“Whence is that knocking?
How is’t with me since every noise appalls me?”
The sleep of Eudora was deep, long and refreshing. It was late in the morning when she was awakened by the sound of an unusual commotion in the house.
She started up in affright and listened, for in her present distressing position every new event seemed charged with deadly danger to herself.