"May she always be so. Go on."
Wilkins looked at him searchingly for a moment, but the boy met his glance steadily, and the head-clerk withdrew his eye with an air of one who is suddenly made aware of entertaining unjust suspicions; and he went on, with a
smile, getting down from his desk, and standing near to Guly meanwhile.
"It would not be to every one, Guly, I would give poor Blanche's history, or what I know of it; but to you I am certain I can do so safely. To begin then at the beginning: She was the daughter of one of the wealthiest bankers in this city, who died several yeas ago insolvent, and left his wife and child destitute. Of course, their former friends cut them, all except a very few; and they took a suite of rooms in the Third Municipality, and removed thither with their few articles of furniture, and their blind and helpless relative. The mother's health began to fail, and after a little while she was unable to do anything toward their support; and all the duties of the household, together with the labor for a livelihood for the three, fell upon little brown-eyed Blanche. She went to work heroically, and turned her accomplishments to profit, and is, as you see, one of the very best brodeurs that can be found. She loved her mother devotedly, and I suppose it almost broke her little heart when she lost her. She has sickened and died within the last two months, as you heard her say. She had all that care upon her young shoulders, beside that of her old grandfather, yet she has neglected neither, and finished her work with it all. Think of it! As you perceive she has an innocent little heart, is a stranger to guile, and is ready to believe every one is what he professes to be. God help her, poor thing!"
"And is that all you know of her, Wilkins?"
"This is all. I know her well; for four years she has brought her work to this spot, and sold it at this counter."
Guly's eye dropped upon that counter almost reverently.
"Where are her relatives, Wilkins?"
"North, I believe. Her father was a poor but talented man when he came here, and his family, though highly estimable at the North, were also poor. He met his wife in some of the high circles, to which his letters admitted him, and they fell in love, and married, though in the face of decided opposition from all her family. Her friends never noticed her afterwards, though he rose, as I told you, to high station and standing; so when he died there was no one to apply to."