“That—must—have—been so,” said the child, very solemnly—then she added: “Oh, the poor people what have to live there all the time! I don’t believe Lady knows about it, or she wouldn’t let them. But I’ll tell her. And she will take them out of it, and you, too, and everybody shall be glad. Lady is like an angel in heaven in her lovely home and garden. She don’t know anything about such——”
“Hells!” added the crone. “And now I’ll go and fetch the black boy to tote you home.”
“Oh, yes; go,” said Owlet, eagerly.
The crone turned away, muttering to herself:
“She’ll do. ’Tain’t a cold night for the last of April. And she’s well wrapped up in my ole shawl, too. Lor’, yes. And the perlice’ll find her presently, and then she’ll be took to the station and took care on. And, Lor’, it’s little account she can give of herself to they. It’s little account she could give to me, as was like a gran’mother to her, toting her in my arms as if she’d been one of Soph’s own kids. And, after all, the Ventures of Cruelty will care on her till her own people turn up. Lor’, yes. She’ll be all right. No fear for her; them rich allers falls onto their feet, somehows,” concluded the ragpicker.
And with this “flattering unction” laid to her paralyzed but not quite deadened conscience, she turned the next corner and wound in and out through the labyrinth of streets and alleys that lay between the spot on which she had left the desolate child and the den which she called her home.
She reached the room at length, opened the door, lighted her stump of tallow candle, and searched for her stolen booty in the pile of rags.
She found them safe. She drew them out and gloated over them.
Finally she selected the coral necklace for immediate investment and replaced all the other treasures under the malodorous pile of rags.
Then she went forth again, and on this occasion to the nearest pawnbroker’s shop.