From this day Lenny was confined to the miserable attic and taken care of by Meg. She watched him by night, and tended him by day; she washed, dressed and fed him; she tried to amuse and console him; she sung all the songs she knew and told all the tales; and she wept when he cried, and she smiled when he laughed; and, though her nature was truthful, she told lots of lies to little Lenny to account for the non-appearance of Doosa, promising every morning that Doosa would certainly come that day.
Little Lenny at first believed this; but daily disappointment at length disturbed his faith. And day by day he pined and pined, wailing in a tone of despair that nearly broke Meg’s heart:
“No, no, no, Doosa not tome. Doosa done away! Doosa done away!”
CHAPTER XXXIV.
THE PEACE-OFFERING.
I give thee all
I can, no more.
Alexander Lyon arrived in London on the morning train, and in a pouring rain. He was pale and faint from his long illness and his fatiguing journey, but he was sustained by intense mental excitement.
His first thought, on leaving the train, was this:
How should he find his lost child in this boundless Babylon?
For the advertisement in the Times, of that morning, had already informed him that the baby-boy was still missing.