“Fainted? I don’t know what you are talking about ‘fainted.’ I went dead—stone dead—dead as a doornail! and I’ve gone dead two or three times, and the last time I was dead was in that horrid, nasty house.”
“And when you came to life again——”
“Oh, yes; when I came to life again I was out in the street, wrapped up in this—phew!—shawl, and lying on the ragged old woman’s lap, and she sitting on the cellar door, close by the stoop where you found me,” said the child, and then she stopped to take a draught of milk from the cup.
“And so you found that all your nice clothes had been taken off you, and this ragged shawl wrapped around you?”
“Yes; but, you see, I reckon it rained while I was dead, and my clothes must have got wet, and that poor, old, ragged woman took off my wet clothes and hung ’em to dry, and put her own poor shawl round me. I do think she had nothing else to wrap me up in, poor old thing, and it was good in her to do it, too. But, all the same, I wish she hadn’t; I’d rather be soaked to the skin than wear anything so nasty—wouldn’t you?”
“I think I should,” answered the young man, quite sincerely.
“It’s awful, you know—just awful! But one must have patience. Oh! what will Lady say to me when she sees me in this?”
“We must try to get you a nice suit of clothes to take you in to Lady.”
“Oh! will you—will you? That will be so jolly nice! Thank you ever so much, sir.”
“Where did that woman leave you, my dear?”