“For a little,” answered Lucy. “He wearied after a while. I might have known it—I was to blame, sir—her heart was broken. When the babe opened its eyes, she closed her’s, and I alone mourned for her.”
“O, God!” groaned the peddler.
“It moves you, sir,” said Lucy; “perhaps you, too, have known trouble.”
The peddler bowed his head without replying.
“Then, sir, he brought a gay young thing into the house—his mistress—not his wife. He never looked upon his child; he cursed me and it. I gave it our name; I called it Fanny Ford; and we crept away, the babe and I, up in the attic;—then all was confusion—extravagance—ruin;—then he died, sir—and since—you see us here—you know now, sir, why I, leaning over the grave’s brink, yet shrink back and cling to life for her sake,” and she looked at Fanny.
“Would you trust her with me?” asked the peddler, with his eyes bent upon the ground. “I am all alone in the world—I have none to love—none who love me—I am poor, but while I have a crust, she shall never want.”
“It is a great charge,” replied Lucy. “If you should weary, sir?”
“Then may God forget me,” said the peddler, earnestly, kneeling at Lucy’s feet.
Lucy bent on him a gaze searching as truth, but she read nothing in that upturned face to give the lie to those solemn words. Pointing to Fanny, she said,