“Oh, plenty of institutions to take in just such as she and she’d be a deal better off than living from hand to mouth as she has always done. The captain must have been a fine man once and so far–so far–has had his rent money ready when it was due; but I made it too small, a great deal too small. I was a fool for sympathy and let my heart run away with my head.
“Know anybody would take in the old man’s few traps and take care of them till something develops?” continued the landlord. “He is dead, of course. Must have been him was run over that time; but they might sell for a trifle for the child’s benefit. I wouldn’t mind having that time-keeping arrangement of bells myself. Was really quite ingenious. I might as well take it, I reckon, on account of loss of occupancy. Yes, I will take it. And if he should return–but he won’t–you tell him, my good woman, how it was and he can look to me to settle. Know anybody has room for his things?”
“No, I don’t. An’ if I did, I wouldn’t tell ye,” answered Meg, testily, and as a relief to her indignation cuffed her youngest born in lieu of him upon whom she wished she dared bestow the correction.
But the corner grocery-man was more obliging and better supplied with accommodations for Captain Beck’s belongings. In truth, seeing that the landlord was determined, whether or no, to remove them from the littlest house, he felt that he must take them in and preserve them from harm against their owner’s claiming them. He thought, with Meg, that harm had certainly befallen the blind seaman and that they would see him no more, but he also felt that Glory’s rights should be protected to the utmost. With this idea in mind, he stoutly objected to parting with the bell-timepiece, and even offered to make up any arrears of rent which the other could rightly claim.
“Oh! that’s all right,” said the landlord, huffishly. “That can rest, but I wish you’d call a cart and get the traps out now, while I’m here to superintend.”
“I’m with you!” cried the grocer, with equal spirit; and so fully fell in with the other’s wishes that, before Glory had been an hour absent from the only home she could remember, it had been emptied of its few, but well loved, furnishings and the key had been turned upon its solitude. Thus ended, too, Nick’s brief brilliant dream of household proprietorship.
However, all this fresh trouble was unknown. Whither her “Angel” led, she was to follow; and this proved to be in wholly a different direction from that dark end of the Lane toward the bridge.
For a time the small, unconscious guide toddled along, making slow progress toward the sound of a hand-organ which her ear had caught yet which was still out of sight. Arrived, they joined the group of children gathered about the grinder and his monkey, and created a profound sensation among the gutter audience.
“Where’d you get her? Whose she belongs?” demanded one big girl who knew Glory and found this white-clad stranger more interesting than even a monkey.
“Belongs to me. She’s mine; she was sent,” returned Take-a-Stitch, with an inimitable gesture of pride.