But at this moment an exclamation from Mrs. Randolph interrupted him. Louis and Pinkie, while the singing was under way, had got together into a corner, where they were discovered to be embracing one another in a very pretty baby fashion.
“But I tisses F’eddy,” observed Pinkie.
“It is very different,” remarked Mrs. Randolph. “Freddy is your cousin; but this little boy is no relation, and is besides in quite a different state of life.”
“Fut is state of life?” asked Pinkie. “Is it tause he tan yun ayound and F’eddy tant?”
“You’ll understand when you are older, dear,” said her mother; but whether Pinkie would have been satisfied with this answer was rendered forever doubtful by the announcement of the carriage.
“Good-by, child,” said the great lady, patting Louis’ golden head; “I wish you every good fortune that is proper for you to have. I was your mother’s best friend, if she had only known it, and would have saved her from the misery that afterwards, in the righteous Providence of God, overtook her.”
“What is misery?” asked little Louis, wistfully; “is it dying? My papa says she died ’cause we was poor, and the millionnaires wouldn’t ’vide. Are you a millionnaire, and would you ’vide?”
“Quite a promising young Socialist,” observed Mr. Randolph. “His father must be a dangerous man.”
But Louis did not hear him; he was listening eagerly to the lady.
“My dear, life and death are the gift of God. Your mother broke his laws, and he punished her”—