But there was no need, for something that wasn’t me spoke, and that in a very gentle way, as I stepped forward, raised the girl up, and kissed her pretty face before laying her little helpless head upon my shoulder, and smoothing her soft brown hair.
“Mother,” says that something from within me, “I think there’s room in the nest at home for this poor, forsaken little bird. Luke, my boy, will you go and fetch a cab? Mother will see to what wants doing here.”
My boy gave a sob as he caught my hand in his, and the next moment he did what he had not done for years—kissed me on the cheek—before running out of the room, leaving me with my darling nestling in my breast.
I said “my darling,” for she has been the sunshine of our home ever since—a pale, wintry sunshine while the sorrow was fresh, but spring and summer now.
Why, bless her! look at her. I’ve felt ashamed sometimes to think that she, a lady by birth, should come down to such a life, making me—well, no, it’s us now, for Luke’s partner—no end of money by her clever ways. But she’s happy, thinking her husband that is to be the finest fellow under the sun; and let me tell you there’s many a gentleman not so well off as my boy will be, even if the money has all come out of a queer trade.
Chapter Six.
A Bird in a Cage.
My visits to Burt’s Buildings resulted in others to the neighbourhood where I made the acquaintance of Uncle Bill, as he was generally called by the swarming children about the place; not from any relationship, in fact for no reason at all that I could discover. One woman said it was because he was lame; another thought he was like an uncle, but all the same the little man often met me on my rounds, at first to look at me very dubiously, but ever after to pull his pipe out of his mouth, tap the bowl upon the pavement and thrust it into his pocket, out of compliment to me as a lady who might not like smoke.