Home did not look so bright to her that evening. Something seemed to be threatening evil, and she sat listless and abstracted, when her mother came home, looking from the window. She did not even see her mother, until she put a hand upon each of her shoulders and asked her "if she was napping?"
"Oh! no, mother, I'm not dozing, and I'm not ill; but there's something coming to Winnie, I know there is. It isn't long that she'll brighten the house!" said Nannie, trembling with emotion.
"Don't be foolish, child," said her mother, after she had ascertained that her precious babe was sleeping sweetly in its cradle, "Winnie's growing stout and healthy, and it's thankful we should be, instead of fretting for fear there'll be sorrow to come."
Nannie shook her head mournfully, and took her knitting from the table, but her heart was more busy with its sad reflections than were her fingers with the young babe's sock. She did not even notice Pat much that evening; but merely took the great apple that he handed her with a quiet "thank ye;" and then relapsed into her silent and thoughtful mood.
Pat would not stay to sit down, for Nannie had not seconded her mother's invitation, and the disappointed boy only lingered to take one peep under the curtain of the cradle of Winnie, and then went home to his abode with a downcast mien, and a slow gait.
CHAPTER XIII.
Mr. Bond had not been to see them for a great while, and the cold weather was coming, and there were hard times in store for them, if they did not manage to get some sewing, or something to do. It was the first of November, and the breeze was no longer soft and bland, as it came from the blue waters upward into the little room, but it was fresh and chilly, and had a mournful tone, and Nannie got cotton and stuffed the windows tight to keep it out. There was but little fuel in the house, and scarcely any money for their next quarter's rent, and Mrs. Flin had been up a day or two before to warn them that they must leave if the funds were not ready by a certain time. Mrs. Bates had fallen down stairs by means of one of Master Sammy's round pebbles, and lamed herself, so that she was no longer able to trudge about with her basket, and where she had applied for sewing, they told her there were more applicants than work, and so she did not know what to do.
"To-morrow's rent-day, Nannie," said she with a sigh, "and I have but a dollar put by toward the twelve. I shall have to send you round to see Mr. Bond, child, and it's me that's ashamed to do that after all he's done for us; but it can't be helped! It's unfortunate we've been the last month, and shure he'll not be blaming the Providence as brought it to us!"
So Nannie put on her old hood and cloak, and went timidly up to Mrs. Kinalden's door. The old lady's aspect was rather forbidding, as she answered the bell, and found only a beggar child had summoned her from her dinner-pot, and she was about to slam the door in her face, when Nannie said,