Mrs. Hunt was making paper bags. Her busy fingers did not stop for a moment, but she cast a quick, keen glance at Nan and Tode.
"What do you mean, Dick?" she said.
"Oh, Mrs. Hunt, if you only would let us stay here till I can find a place to work, I'd be so thankful. We'll have to stay in the street tonight--Little Brother and I--if you don't," urged Nan, eagerly.
Mrs. Hunt's kind heart was touched by the girl's pleading tone. She had girls of her own and she thought, "What if my Nellie had to spend the night in the street," but she said only:
"Sit down, my dear, and tell me all about it."
The kind tone and those two words "my dear," were almost too much for poor anxious Nan. Her eyes filled with tears and her voice was not quite steady as she told again her sorrowful little story, and when it was ended the mother's eyes too were dim.
"Give me that baby," she exclaimed, forgetting her work for the moment, and she took the little fellow tenderly in her arms. "You poor child," she added, to Nan, "of course you can stay here to-night. It's a poor enough place an' we're as pinched as we can be, but we'll manage somehow to squeeze out a bite and a corner for you for a day or two anyway."
Tode's face expressed his satisfaction as he turned to depart. Dick too looked pleased.
"Didn't I tell ye I'd got the best mother in this town?" he said, proudly, as he followed Tode down the stairs.
"Yes you did, an' 'twarn't no lie neither," assented Tode, emphatically; "but, see here, you can tell your mother that I'm agoin' to pay for that little feller's bread an' milk."