The girl followed as fast as she could, but the child was a limp weight in her arms and she soon began to lag behind and breathe heavily. "What's the matter? Why don't ye hurry up?" exclaimed the boy with an impatient backward glance.
"I--can't. He's so--heavy," panted the girl breathlessly.
Tode did not offer to take the child. He only put his hands in his pockets and waited for her, and then went on more slowly.
When they reached the wharf, he led the way to a quiet corner where the girl dropped down with a sigh of relief and weariness, while he leaned against a post and looked down at her. Presently he remarked,
"What's yer name?" "Nan Hastings," replied the girl.
"How'd she get hold o' ye?" pursued the boy, with a backward jerk of his thumb that Nan rightly concluded was meant to indicate the Leary woman.
She answered slowly, "It was when mother died. We had a nice home. We were not poor folks. My father was an engineer, and he was killed in an accident before Little Brother was born, and that almost broke mother's heart. After the baby came she was sick all the time and she couldn't work much, and so we used up all the money we had, and mother got sicker and at last she told me she was going to die." The girl's voice trembled and she was silent for a moment; then she went on, "She made me kneel down by the bed and promise her that I would always take care of Little Brother and bring him up to be a good man as father was. I promised, and I am going to do it."
The girl spoke earnestly with the light of a solemn purpose in her dark eyes.
Tode began to be interested. "And she died?" he prompted.
"Yes, she died. She wrote to some of her relatives before she died asking them to help Little Brother and me, but there was no answer to the letter, and after she died all our furniture was sold to pay the doctor and the funeral bills. The doctor wanted to send us to an orphan asylum, but Mary Leary had worked for us, and she told me that if we went to an asylum they would take Little Brother away from me and I'd never see him any more, and she said if I'd go home with her she'd find me a place to work and I could keep the baby. So I went home with her. It was a horrid place"--Nan shuddered--"and I found out pretty soon that she drank whiskey, but I hadn't any other place to go, so I had to stay there, but lately she's been taking the baby out every day and he's been growing so pale and sick-looking, and yesterday I caught her giving him whiskey, and then I knew she did it to make him look sick so that she would get more money when she went out begging with him."