That awoke Sandy, who stood beside her and it as if in some dreadful dream. He rubbed his bedimmed eyes, and looked closely, though shudderingly, at the little child.
"Why, it's not my Gip at all!" he cried. "She'd black hair, and she were like a gipsy, not a bit like this little gel. No; that isn't Gip!"
He could hardly keep himself from breaking out into laughter, and dancing about the bare, empty room in this sudden deliverance from his agony of dread. But a second glance at the dead face sobered him. What this child was, his little Gip might be somewhere—a terrible thought, which would haunt him all his life long, if he could not find her.
They returned to the inspector's office, for Sandy to declare that the child found was not his lost sister; and after being warned that the police would have an eye upon him, he was allowed to go away in the care of Mrs. Shafto, who had voluntarily given her address, and promised that she also would keep her eye upon the homeless lad.
———◆———
[CHAPTER VIII.]
MR. SHAFTO.
SANDY had no desire to slip away from the friendly guardianship of Mrs. Shafto. Her words had strengthened the new hope in his heart, that the grave was not the end of those children he had seen buried in it, and he wished to learn more about this strange and good news. He kept close beside her, though she seemed less inclined to talk to him than when they were going to look for his mother. She could not trust herself to speak, for her heart was full of the sad and terrible sight she had just left.
Mrs. Shafto was also a little anxious about Sandy, who followed her so closely, as closely as a stray and homeless dog might have done, and for whom she had undertaken a kind of responsibility. Though they were not as miserable and degraded as the people she had been seeing, they were very poor, she and her husband; so poor that, but for her own hard and incessant work as a needlewoman, they would often have to go without sufficient bread to eat.
What was she to do with this great, growing lad out of the streets, as wild and ignorant as a young savage; a thief very probably; with no spark of good in him, except his love for his little sister? She knew very well that her husband would grudge any help given to Sandy if it deprived him of the least comfort, or demanded of him any self-denial. But she could not endure the thought of thrusting him away, uncomforted and unhelped, into the open street, with no sort of home to find refuge in. She could not treat a dog so; and of how much more worth was this boy than a dog! Besides, it was Johnny who had found him first, and brought him home—her lame lad, who seemed to know so well what Christ would have him do, and how to tread gladly in his Lord's steps. She could not go back to the house, and tell him she had cast off Sandy, and left him in the great wilderness of London.