“What’s your name?” he asked, at length; “but there, never mind! I don’t care what it is. What’s your name to do with me, I wonder?”
“It’s Jessica,” said the girl: “but mother and every body calls me Jess. You’d be tired of being called Jess, if you were me. It’s Jess here, and Jess there: and every body wanting me to go errands. And they think nothing of giving me smacks, and kicks, and pinches. Look here!”
Whether her arms were black and blue from the cold or from ill-usage he could not tell; but he shook his head again seriously and the child felt encouraged to go on.
“I wish I could stay here for ever and ever, just as I am!” she cried. “But you’re going away, I know; and I’m never to come again, or you’ll set the police on me!”
“Yes,” said the coffee-stall keeper very softly; and looking round to see if there were any other ragged children within sight, “if you’ll promise not to come again for a whole week, and not to tell any body else, you may come once more. I’ll give you one other treat. But you must be off now.”
“I’m off, sir,” she said, sharply; “but if you’ve a errand I could go on I’d do it all right, I would. Let me carry some of your things.”
“No, no,” cried the man; “you run away, like a good girl; and, mind! I’m not to see you again for a whole week.”
“All right,” answered Jess, setting off down the rainy street at a quick run, as if to show her willing agreement to the bargain; while the coffee-stall keeper, with many a cautious glance around him, removed his stock in trade to the coffee-house near at hand, and was seen no more for the rest of the day in the neighborhood of the railway-bridge.