"How long is it since you made that determination?" asked Letty. "When you first came here, you were glad enough to have the neighbours call upon you."
"Well, but there have been a great many changes since then,—changes in us and in everybody," said Agnes. "I can't make neighbours of people, and take an interest in them, merely because I happen to live alongside of them."
"I think the simple fact that I live alongside of them is a tolerably strong indication of Providence that I ought to take an interest in them," replied Letty. "According to the Saviour's definition, any one to whom I can do good is my neighbour."
"Oh, if you begin to talk in that style, I have done," said Agnes, to whom all religious conversation was cant. "I am no match for you there. And I am sure I don't care if you choose to put yourself on such terms with every sort of people: it is no concern of mine. It is a queer taste: that's all. Only, I should not think you would like to have such a melancholy little object as that about you. If I were his mother, I should want to hide him away where nobody could see him. I should feel so ashamed of him, I fear, I should wish he was dead, every hour in the day."
"Oh, Agnes! Don't say so!" exclaimed Letty, shocked by this thoughtless speech, as she remembered Madge. "I am sure you would never love Madge the less if she were to turn out helpless and deformed?"
"My mother loves me just as much as if I wasn't lame," said the little fellow, looking up with a flush on his pale face; "and so does Willy, and so do you: don't you, Mrs. Caswell?"
"To be sure I do," replied Letty. "I love you all the better."
"Who would have thought of his taking notice?" said Agnes,—rather ashamed.
"He notices every thing," replied Letty. "He is very bright, though he has had but little teaching. It is hard upon his mother to be so much occupied. She has to give all her time to her shop, and she does not like to have Harry with her, for fear of his taking cold: so he is alone a good deal,—more than is good for him."
"I like to live here," said Harry. "You are very good to me. When we lived over the store, we didn't know any one, hardly, and there was the no place for me to play out-of-doors, only in the street."