Mrs. Gregory anticipated the reply by coming forward.
“Poor old man!” said she, compassionately (for the attire which Armstrong had donned for the occasion was singularly threadbare, and evinced the lowest depth of destitution),—“poor old man! what can I do for you?”
“I have brought my grand-daughter with me, good lady,” said the old man, feebly, “in answer to your advertisement. She’s a good girl, and I wish I could keep her with me; but the times are hard, and it costs a sight to live; and so I’ve been thinking the best thing I could do is to get her a good place, and a good mistress, as I am sure you would be to her, madam.”
Mrs. Gregory’s sympathies were enlisted in the child’s favor by this artful address, as well as by her own modest and downcast look. She was not aware, however, that not a little of her confusion arose from the dissimulation in which she was compelled to take a part.
“What is your grand-daughter’s name?” asked Mrs. Gregory. “She seems young.”
“She is only twelve; but she’s capable,—very capable. When her poor grandmother was sick for nearly a year before she died,”—and Armstrong wiped his eyes with his ragged sleeve at the sorrowful thought,—“Helen took the whole care of her and of me; and no one could find a better nurse.”
“It must have been a great care to you, Helen,” said Mrs. Gregory, kindly.
Helen had been so much taken aback by the last fabrication respecting a grandmother of whom she had never heard, that she was barely able to say, in a low voice,—
“Yes, ma’am.”
“But you will never regret it, my child,” said the lady. “God will not fail to reward good children. So your name is Helen?”