"Cleena, Cleena, turncoat! Wasn't I once, on a day gone by, another 'poor little gossoon'? But come, drop nonsense; it's a disgracefully serious business for me and for your whole family."
"It's because o' the family I say it. The lad's for no punishin'. Not yet. You're big an' strong, an' uncommon light o' heart. It'll do ye no harm. The suspicioned you must be till—Wait lad. You loved the mistress, Salome?"
"Why, Cleena, you know it!"
"Love you her childer?"
"Dearly; for their sakes I must shake off this obnoxious misjudgment." He shrugged his shoulders as if the obloquy were a tangible load that could be shifted.
"Hallam, the cripple, that's walked never a step since a diny dony thing, an' a bad nurse set him prone on the cold stones o' the nasty cellar house where her kind lived. That winter in the town, an' me mindin' the mistress with Miss Amy a babe. How could we watch all the time? He must have the air, what for no? An' her with a face as smooth as bees-wax. Down on the cold, damp stones she'd put him, whiles off with her young man she'd be trapesin', an' him made a cripple for life."
"Yes, Cleena, I remember it all. And how, as Amy tells me, almost a fortune has been spent to restore him. But if ever I earn enough to try again, I'll never rest till every doctor in the world, who understands such things, shall tell me there is no hope."
"Good lad. Aye, aye, good lad!"
The gentleman looked at her in amazement. This had been the old servant's term of commendation when he had refrained from some of his youthful and natural mischievousness. She seemed to mean it just as earnestly now. Suddenly she leaned forward and placed her hands upon his knees.
"Say it again, avick. You'd do all in your power for me darlin' Master Hallam, what for no?"