“Merton sounds some like it, though I’d sooner say ’twas Burton, or something like that. I never even so much as passed the time of day with ’em, for I tell you they felt above me; but the girl was a jewel—so trim and genteel like.”
“That was Marian,” whispered Alice; and Frederic continued:
“Where are they now?”
“Bless you,” returned the woman. “One on ’em is in Heaven, and the Lord only knows where t’other one went to.”
Alice’s hand, which lay in Frederic’s, was clutched with a painful grasp; and the perspiration gathered about the young man’s white lips as he stammered out:
“Which one is dead? Not the girl? You dare not tell me that?”
“I dare if it was so,” returned the woman; “but ’twant; ’twas the old one—the one I took to be the mother; though I have heard a story about the girl’s comin’ here long time ago, before I moved here. I was away when the woman died, and when I got back the rooms was empty, and the boy and girl was gone; nobody knows where; and I haint seen ’em since.”
Frederic was too much interested in Marian to hear anything else, and he paid no attention to her mention of a boy. Marian was all he wished to find, but it was in vain that he questioned and cross-questioned the woman. She had given all the information she could; and with an increased feeling of disappointment he left her, glancing once more into the room where he was sure Marian had lived. Alice, too, was willing to stop there now; and when Frederic told her of the geranium and the kitten he had once seen in the window, a smile mingled with her tears, and she wished she had them now, especially the kitten! She did not know that the matronly-looking cat, which, behind the broken stove, was purring sleepily, was the same Maltese kitten Marian had fondled so often. At the time of leaving she had given it to an acquaintance near by, but pussy preferred her old haunts, and returning to them, persisted in remaining there until the arrival of the new comers, who took her in, and she now daily shared the meagre fare of the three children by the window. Intuitively, as it were, she felt that Alice was a lover of her race, and she came towards her, purring loudly, and rubbing against her side.
“Lands sake,” exclaimed the woman. “Here’s the very cat the young girl used to tend so much. I know it by the white spot between its eyes. I found it mewing and making an awful noise by the door when I came back; and though I ain’t none of your cat women, I flung it a bone or two till them folks came, and the children kept it to torment, I ’spect, just as young ones will. I see one of ’em with a string round its neck t’other day a chokin’ it most to death.”
“Oh, Frederic,” and Alice’s face expressed what she wished to say, while she caught up the animal in her arms.