“I should like to,” said Tom, “if you’ll let me pay for my board.”
“Shure we won’t quarrel about that. And what are you goin’ to do, Tom, the day?”
“I don’t know,” said Tom. “If I had any money I’d buy some papers.”
“How much wud you want?”
“Twenty-five cents would give me a start.”
Mrs. Murphy dived into the recesses of a capacious pocket, and drew out a handful of currency.
“I’ll lind it to you,” she said. “Why didn’t you ask me before?”
“Thank you,” said Tom. “I’ll bring it back to-night. You’re very kind to me, Mrs. Murphy,” she added, gratefully.
“It’s the poor that knows how to feel for the poor,” said the apple-woman. “It’s I that’ll trust you, Tom, dear.”
Three months before Tom would have told Mrs. Murphy that she was a trump; but though some of her street phrases clung to her, she was beginning to use less of the slang which she had picked up during her long apprenticeship to a street life. Though her position, even at Mrs. Merton’s, had not been as favorable as it might have been elsewhere, the influences were far better than in the home (if it deserved the name) in which she had been reared, and the association of the school which she attended had, likewise, been of advantage to her. I do not wish it to be understood that Tom had in three months changed from a young Arab into a refined young lady. That would be hardly possible; but she had begun to change, and she could never again be quite the wild, reckless girl whose acquaintance we made at the street-crossing.