"Ay, that it is," Mrs. Holl agreed, "and he is a wonderful chap, is Harry. But he ain't no son of mine, Mr. Norris, though he don't know it himself, and I shouldn't like him to be told."
"Then what relation is he, Mrs. Holl, if it is not an impertinent question?"
"He ain't no sort of relation at all, sir," the woman answered.
"Then how came you to bring him up, Mrs. Holl?" Frank asked in surprise.
"Well, sir, it was a very simple matter. But if so be as you care to hear it, I will tell you just how it happened." And, leaning against the mantelpiece, with the red light of the fire thrown up into her face, Mrs. Holl went on very slowly, and speaking as though she almost saw what she was relating.
"Well, sir, it were an evening in April—a cold bitter day. I was sitting here between light and dark, drinking my tea with John, who was just come home from work—John is my husband, you see, sir—when we heard a noise outside in the street. We went out to see what was the matter, and we found a poor young creature, with a baby in her arms, had fallen down in a faint like.
"She was a pretty young thing, sir; and though her dress was poor and torn, she looked as if she had not been always so. Some one says, 'Take them to the workhouse.' 'No!' says I—for my heart yearned towards the poor young thing—'bring her in here; mayn't we, John?' says I. Well, sir, John did not say nothing, but he took the baby out of her arms and gave it to me, and then he upped and took the poor young creature—she were no great weight, sir—and carried her into the house, and laid her on the bed, as it might be by the window there.
"Well, sir, that bed she never left; she came round a little, and lived some days, but her mind were never rightly itself again. She would lay there, with her baby beside her, and sing songs to herself; I don't know what about, for it were some foreign language. She were very gentle and quiet like, but I don't think she ever knew where she was, or anything about it. She were very fond of baby, and would take it in her arms, and hush it, and talk to it. She faded and faded away, and the doctor said nothing could be done for her; it made my heart ache, sir, and if you will believe me, I would go upstairs and cry by the hour.
"The thought of the little baby troubled me too. I had lost my first little one, sir, and I could not a-bear the thought of the little thing going to the workhouse. So one day I says to John, 'John, when that poor mother dies, for God's sake don't 'ee send the little baby to the workhouse; He has taken away our own little one, and may be He has sent this one for us to love in his place. Let us take him as our own.' John, he did not say nothing, but he up and gived me a great kiss, and said, 'Sairey, you're a good woman!' which of course, sir," Mrs. Holl put in apologetically, "is neither here nor there, for any mother would have done the same; but it's John's way when he's pleased. That very same night the baby's mother died."
Standing with her rough honest face lit up by the bright fire-glow she related it, simply, and as a matter of course, all unconscious of the good part she had taken in it, assuming no credit to herself, or seeing that she deserved any.