“Well! I just will get ’em hout, same as if she bid me.”
The widow rose, went to her trunk, unlocked it, and taking out a parcel wrapped in a snowy towel, spread its contents before the fire.
There they were—the neat, comfortable garments, smelling of lavender and camphor.
Mrs Jenks contemplated them with pride. How well grown her boy must be, to need a jacket and trousers so large as these! They would be sure to fit, she had measured his appearance so accurately in her mind’s eye that sad day when he was taken to prison!
She examined the beautiful stitching she had put into them with pride; when they were aired she took a clothes’ brush, and brushed them over again—then she folded them up, and finally raised them to her lips and kissed them.
As she did this, as she pressed her lips to the collar of the jacket, in that fervent kiss of motherly love, a great sob outside the window startled her considerably. Her room was on the ground floor, and she remembered that she had forgotten that evening, in her depression and sadness of spirit, to draw down the blind.
Holding her hand to her beating heart, she approached and looked out.
She had not been mistaken in supposing she heard a sob. A lad was lying full length on his face and hands in the snow, outside her window, and she heard suppressed moans still coming from his lips.
For the sake of her own son she must be kind to all destitute creatures.
She stepped out on her threshold, and spoke in her old cheery tones.