Miss Mary smiled.
“Now, Flo,” she said, “I really don’t wish to disappoint you, but I greatly fear you are mistaken. You may have a mattress, but you have no mattress in number 7, Duncan Street, for that cellar, as well as every other cellar in the street, has been shut up by the police three weeks ago. They are none of them fit places for human beings to live in.”
If Miss Mary, sitting there in her summer muslin, surrounded by every comfort, thought that Flo would rejoice in the fact that these places, unfit for any of God’s creatures, were shut up, she was vastly mistaken. Dark and wretched hole of a place as number 7, Duncan Street, was, it was there her mother had died, it was there she and Dick had played, and struggled, and been honest, and happy. Poor miserable shred of a home, it was the only home she had ever possessed the only place she had a right to call her own.
Now that it was gone, the streets or the Adelphi arches stared her in the face. Veritable tears came to her eyes, and in her excitement and distress, she forgot her awe of the first lady who had ever spoken to her.
“Please, mum, ef the cellar is shut up, wot ’ave come of my little bits o’ duds, my mattress, and table, and little cobbler’s stool?—that little stool wor worth sixpence any day, it stood so steady on its legs. Wot ’ave come o’ them, mum, and wot’s to come o’ Scamp and me, mum?”
“Ah!” said the lady more kindly than ever, “that is the important question, what is to become of you and Scamp? Well, my dear, God has a nice little plan all ready for you both, and what you have to do is to say yes to it.”
“And I ’ave brought you here to learn all about it, Flo,” said Mrs Jenks, nodding and smiling at her.
Then Miss Mary made the child seat herself on a low stool by her side, and unfolded to her a wonderful revelation. She, Flo, was no stranger to this lady. Mrs Jenks once a week worked as char-woman in this house, and had long ago told its mistress of her little charge; and Miss Mary was charmed and interested, and wanted to buy Scamp, only Mrs Jenks declared that that would break Flo’s heart. So instead she had contributed something every week to the keep of the two.
Now she wished to do something more. Miss Mary Graham was not rich, and long ago every penny of her spare money had been appropriated in various charitable ways, but about a fortnight ago a singular thing had happened to her. She received through the post a cheque for a small sum with these words inside the envelope—
“To be spent on the first little homeless London child you care to devote it to.”