"You're very proud of that, Ronald—you have good reason to be," said his friend. "But now, dear, I seriously want to ask you a few questions. You have told me about Connie, and about some of your dreadful life with Mammy Warren. I am anxious that you should try to forget all these terrible things as much as possible."
"Oh! but, please, I never could forget dear Connie."
"I don't want you to forget her. I have been planning a delightful surprise for you with regard to her. But other things you can forget."
"There's another person I don't want to forget," said Ronald; "that is the good woman in the country who gave me delicious new-laid eggs and chops and chicken. Mrs. Cricket was her name. I used to think of The Cricket on the Hearth often when I was looking at her. She was very like one, you know—such a cosy, purring sort of woman."
"How long were you with her, Ronald?"
"I don't remember going to her," said Ronald, shaking his head; "but perhaps I was too ill. But I do remember being with her, and the little path in the wood, and how I gradually got better, and how she petted me. And I remember Connie coming down the path looking like an angel; but Connie was the only bright thing for me to think about that dreadful day. But oh, please—please, Mrs. Anderson! poor Mrs. Cricket! Father hasn't come back, you know—he is coming, of course, but he hasn't come yet—and no one has paid Mrs. Cricket!"
"No one has paid her, dear?"
"Nobody at all. Mammy Warren said to her that father would pay her, but I know now it must have been all a lie."
"I am very much afraid it was," said Mrs. Anderson. "That Mammy Warren was a dreadful woman. Well, Ronald, I must try and get Mrs. Cricket's address, and we'll send her some money; and some day perhaps—there's no saying when—you may be able to go back to her. Would you like to see her again?"
"Very, very much," said the child, "if Mammy Warren doesn't come to fetch me."