"His name's Tony," he replied.
"But where does he come from? Is he respectable?" she pursued, fixing him with her glittering eyes in a manner which did not tend to restore his composure.
"I don't know, sister," he said in a feeble tone.
"Don't know, brother James!" she exclaimed. "Don't you know where he lives?"
"He lives here," stammered old Oliver; "at least he sleeps here under the counter; but he finds his own food about the streets."
Charlotte's consternation was past all powers of speech. Here was her brother, a respectable man, who had seen better days, and whose sister had been a dressmaker in good families, harbouring in his own house a common boy off the streets, who, no doubt, was a thief and pickpocket, with all sorts of low ways and bad language. At the same time there was poor Susan's little girl dwelling under the same roof; the child whose pretty manners she was to attend to, living in constant companionship with a vulgar and vicious boy! What she might have said upon recovering her speech, neither she nor Oliver ever knew; for at this crisis Tony himself appeared, carrying Dolly and his new broom in his arms, and looking very haggard and tattered himself, his bare feet black with mud, and his bare head in a hopeless condition of confusion, and tangle.
"We've bought a geat big boom, gan-pa," shouted Dolly, as she came through the shop, and before she perceived the presence of a stranger; "and Tony and Dolly made a great big crossing, and dot ever so much money—"
She was suddenly silent as soon as her eye fell upon the stranger; but
Aunt Charlotte had heard enough. She rose with great dignity from her
chair, and was about to address herself vehemently to Tony, when old
Oliver interrupted her.
"Charlotte," he said, "the boy's a good boy, and he's a help to me. I couldn't send him away. He's one of the Lord's poor little ones as are scattered up and down in this great city, without father or mother, and I must do all I can for him. It isn't much; it's only a bed under the counter, and a crust now and then, and he more than pays for it. You musn't come betwixt me and Tony."
Old Oliver spoke so emphatically, that his sister was impressed and silenced for a minute. She took the little girl away from Tony, and glared at him with a sternness which made him feel very uncomfortable; but her eye softened a little, and her face grew less harsh.