CHAPTER XIII
Little Meg's Father
The baby was buried the next morning, after Meg had looked upon it for the last time lying very peacefully and smilingly in its little coffin, and had shed some tears that were full of sorrow yet had no bitterness upon its dead face. Mrs Blossom took Robin to follow it to the grave, leaving Kitty in charge of little Meg. The front attic door was locked, and the key was under Meg's pillow, not to be used again until she was well enough to turn it herself in the lock. The bag containing the small key of the box, with the unopened letter which had come for her mother, hung always round her neck, and her hand often clasped it tightly as she slept.
Meg was lying very still, with her face turned from the light, following in her thoughts the little coffin that was being carried in turns by Mrs Blossom and another woman whom she knew, through the noisy streets, when Kitty heard the tread of a man's foot coming up the ladder. It could be no one else but Dr Christie, she thought; but why then did he stop at the front attic door, and rattle the latch in trying to open it? Kitty looked out and saw a seafaring man, in worn and shabby sailor's clothing, as if he had just come off a long voyage. His face was brown and weather-beaten; and his eyes, black and bright, were set deep in his head, and looked as if they were used to take long, keen surveys over the glittering sea. He turned sharply round as Kitty opened her door.
'Young woman,' he said, 'do you know aught of my wife, Peggy Fleming, and her children, who used to live here? Peggy wrote me word she'd moved into the front attic.'
'It's father,' called little Meg from her mattress on the floor; 'I'm here, father! Robin and me's left; but mother's dead, and baby. Oh! father, father! You've come home at last!'
Meg's father brushed past Kitty into the room where Meg sat up in bed, her face quivering, and her poor bruised arms stretched out to welcome him. He sat down on the mattress and took her in his own strong arms, while for a minute or two Meg lay still in them, almost like one dead.
'Oh!' she said at last, with a sigh as if her heart had well-nigh broken, 'I've took care of Robin and the money, and they're safe. Only baby's dead. But don't you mind much, father; it wasn't a nice place for baby to grow up in.'
'Tell me all about it,' said Robert Fleming, looking at Kitty, but still holding his little daughter in his arms; and Kitty told him all she knew of her lonely life and troubles up in the solitary attic, which no one had been allowed to enter; and from time to time Meg's father groaned aloud, and kissed Meg's pale and wrinkled forehead fondly. But he asked how it was she never let any of the neighbours, Kitty herself, for instance, stay with her, and help her sometimes.