"An' so you cut an' run?" put in Tode, as the girl paused.
"Yes--and I'll never go back to her, but--I don't know what I can do. Do you know any place where I can stay and work for Little Brother?"
The dark eyes looked up into the boy's face with a wistful, pleading glance, as the girl spoke.
"I'd know no place," replied Tode, shrugging his shoulders carelessly. He did not feel called upon to help this girl. Tode considered girls entirely unnecessary evils.
Nan looked disappointed, but she said no more.
"He's wakin' up, I guess," remarked Tode, glancing at the baby.
The little thing stirred uneasily, and then the heavy, blue-veined lids were lifted slowly, and a pair of big innocent blue eyes looked straight into Tode's. A long, steadfast, unchildlike look it was, a look that somehow held the boy's eyes in spite of himself, and then a faint, tremulous smile quivered over the pale lips, and the baby hands were lifted to the boy.
That look and smile had a strange, a wonderful effect on Tode. Something seemed to spring into life in his heart in that instant. Up to this hour he had never known what love was, for he had never loved any human being, but as he gazed into the pure depths of those blue eyes and saw the baby fingers flutter feebly toward him, his heart went out in love to the child, and he held out his arms to take him.
Nan hesitated, with a quick glance at Tode's dirty hands and garments, but he cried imperiously,