“Come here, won’t you?” said Mildred, holding out her hand; and won by the pleasant voice, the little girl went to her, and winding her chubby arms around her neck, said:
“Is you most well, pretty lady?”
Mildred answered by kissing her velvety cheek and hugging her closer to her bosom, while over her there swept a most delicious feeling, as if the beautiful creature, nestling so lovingly to her side, were very near to her.
“Where do you live?” she asked; and the child replied:
“Oh, in the ship, and in the railroad, and everything.”
“But where’s your mother?” continued Mildred, and over the little girl’s face there flitted a shadow, as she replied:
“Ma’s in heaven, and pa’s down-stairs smoking a cigar. He ties awful hard sometimes.”
“Have you any sisters?” was the next interrogatory; and the answer was:
“I’ve got one in heaven, and a brother, too,—so pa says. I never seen the sister, but when ma died, and they lifted me up to look at her in the box, there lay on her arm a little teeny baby, not so big as dolly, and they put them both under the grass, over the sea, ever and ever and ever so ways off,” and she pointed toward the setting sun, as if she thus would indicate the vast distance between herself and her buried mother.
“You came from over the sea, then?” returned Mildred. “Will you tell me what your name is?”