“Is it time?” asked the child, springing from her seat quickly, as if afraid of having neglected her duty.
“Time enough,” returned the man; “for I’ve been at work this morning, and have got an appetite like a wolf. Besides, I want you to be through soon; for I shall send you out shopping this afternoon. Has any one been in to see me this forenoon, Helen?”
“No,” said Helen (for that was her name).
“Good. I don’t care to have visitors.”
Helen quickly brought out, from a closet hard by, a plate of cold meat, some cold vegetables, and a plate of bread and butter. The man drew his chair to the table, and during the next quarter of an hour, in which he was so busily occupied with satisfying his appetite that he had no time for any thing else, said not a word to the child, who, on her part, was too much accustomed to his manner to utter a word.
At length, having accomplished his task in a manner so satisfactory that very little remained on the table, he drew his chair away, and motioned the child to take her place at it.
“Take your place and eat, Helen,” said he, a little less gruffly than before; “and, while you are eating, I will tell you of a little plan I have formed for you.”
“How do you like living here?” he resumed when she had seated herself.
She looked into his face, as if to know whether it would do to express her real opinion. His face was not so forbidding as it appeared at times, and she ventured to say,—