Mrs. Hardy listened attentively; and when Virtue Ann finished speaking, she said, “Will you take me to the boy? I have just come to ask him to visit us as long as he likes.”
Virtue Ann was almost beside herself with relief. “You’ve the best heart in the world, ma’am,” she said enthusiastically. “This is the most pleasurable thing that could happen to him. Oh, I’m out of my senses for joy!” and she seized Mrs. Hardy’s hand in her own.
The sergeant’s wife smiled at her; then she asked again, somewhat impatiently, where Eugene was.
“Here, ma’am,” said Virtue Ann; and she threw open the door of the small parlor.
Mrs. Hardy’s face changed quickly. The boy sat by the table, his young head bent over a piece of paper, on which he was laboriously writing figures. She knew that his childish head was throbbing with the vain effort to find some way by which he could increase the sum of money that he had on hand.
Poor little one! and vain task beyond his years, she thought pitifully; but she restrained herself from any open expression of sympathy, for she knew that he would not appreciate it.
He got up slowly when he saw her, and offered her his seat; and with a sharp pang at her heart she noticed the curious facility and unchildishness with which he put his own trouble from him, and waited courteously to hear the object of her visit.
“I have come to see you,” she began absently, then she paused. Could this indeed be the same little boy that her husband had seen scampering merrily over the Fens only that morning?
“Did you win any of the races to-day?” she said irrelevantly.
Some color came into Eugene’s face, and made him look like a delicate bit of porcelain. “I did,” he said eagerly. “I amused myself very much; and I am invited to go again to-morrow if—if other matters will permit;” and he grew grave again.