"Ha, ha! Well, but suppose I don't want to have a 'see,' as you call it; suppose I live here?"
Johnnie didn't answer immediately. He heaved a big, double sort of a sigh, and on his eyelashes something appeared that glittered in the light like the melted snow-flakes on the stranger's brown beard.
"I wish my mother and Siss lived in there."
There was a ring of genuine sadness and pathos in the boy's voice that went straight to that tall man's heart, and he would not have trusted himself to speak just then for a good deal. He felt certain in his own mind that this poor, ragged lad was speaking the truth. Then he pictured to himself the contrast between the very poor and the rich in such a city as this. How could he help doing so, when he glanced from the white and weary face before him to the happy children at their innocent gambols within?
"It is a contrast," he murmured to himself, "that Heaven permits for some good purpose, though it is all dark, dark to my limited mental vision."
But, happy thought! he could do something even to-night to soothe the sorrows and sufferings of this one wee waif before him. It was Christmas eve too.
"Tell me, boy," he said first, "how comes it that you can talk such good English?"
"Because I'm talking to a gentleman."
"But can't you speak broad Scotch?"
"Bonnie yon, to the wee callants on the street. But mother makes us—Siss and me—speak English at home."