"Do you wish it very much, dear heart?" she asked. "It would be hard to see Sandy in your Sunday suit, but if you really wish it—"
"Oh, mother, I do," he said: "it's as if Sandy was my own brother, and little Gip my sister. I think of them so when I lie awake of nights. I feel as if I almost knew how Jesus longs to find those who are lost, and have them with Him in heaven. I found Sandy, and now it seems as if he belonged to me, and must share all I have. If we could only find little Gip before I die!"
It was a very sore trial for Mrs. Shafto, but she went through it bravely for Johnny's sake. She brought out his Sunday suit from the drawer in her own room, where she kept it neatly brushed and folded up; and she looked for a clean collar and a necktie, such as John Shafto had been used to wear. It seemed almost as bad as stitching Johnny's shroud—a sorrowful task that would fall upon her before the spring was over. She laid them on his bed; and then went downstairs to find Sandy, and bid him go and dress himself in her boy's best suit.
This was a very important and difficult business to Sandy, and John Shafto lay watching him with quiet but very great delight. His old rags had disappeared one by one, and he had learned to keep himself clean and tidy; but he had never put on any clothes at all to be compared with these, though they were rubbed a little at the elbows and knees, and all the seams were somewhat frayed. He brushed his hair before the small looking glass, and tried anxiously to part his rough, strong curls as smoothly as John Shafto's fine and thin hair. Very carefully and slowly he put on the clean white collar, and did his best to fasten the blue necktie under his chin as neatly as John would have done. But, after all his efforts, he felt sure he did not look like him, and he was almost ready to cry with vexation and disappointment. His brown healthy face and rough hands were very different from John's delicate appearance.
"Come here, Sandy," said John Shafto, in his low, feeble voice: "come here, and kiss me."
He had never asked him to kiss him before, and Sandy felt frightened. But he bent over the pale, sunken face, and touched it as softly with his lips as he had been used to kiss little Gip when she was asleep.
"Why, nobody 'ud know you now," said John, looking at him with critical and admiring eyes. "I don't believe your mother 'ud think who it was if she met you in the streets dressed like this."
"But little Gip 'ud never know me!" cried Sandy, dejectedly. He was proud of his new clothes; but if they were to stand in the way of his finding Gip, he would rather return to his old rags. He began to think that perhaps he was out of the way of finding her, now that he had been lifted out of their old life. What good would it be to him if he lived well, and had a comfortable bed to sleep on, and wore fine clothes, if his little Gip were starved, and cold, and almost naked? He would give up all, even Mrs. Shafto and his friend Johnny, and go back and down to the former degradation and misery, if he could only save Gip by doing so.
"But you'll know little Gip," answered John Shafto: "you couldn't pass by her, and not know her."
"Ay!" said Sandy: "I'd know her if there were thousands and thousands of little gels; I'd pick her out among 'em all."