And he coolly proceeded to do so, apparently unmoved by the sad story of death and disaster he had just heard.
Then he beckoned to two rough-looking men who had been standing in the hallway. They came up at once, and at a motion of the hand from the dispossess officer, they began at once to move the few shabby household effects into the street.
Painful sobs burst from the hapless orphans, but the little Irishwoman, with the calmness of one long familiar with the stern face of poverty, said to them gently:
“You see, dears, ye are turned into the street. Have yees any friends to take yees in?”
Jessie answered forlornly:
“We have an aunt, a dressmaker, in a distant part of the city. She was papa’s sister, but he would never let her know that we were so poor after he lost his steady job, saying she had troubles enough of her own.”
“Av coorse she will help yees, when she knows about your troubles, poor things, so now come to my room and have a little snack before we start to the hospital,” said Mrs. Ryan tenderly, marshaling the orphans past the dispossess agent, who remarked insinuatingly:
“The oldest girl’s big enough to go out and earn her own living, and if her aunt won’t take her to keep, I know of a situation she can get as parlormaid with a very nice lady.”
“Thank you kindly, but I hope she won’t need it,” returned Mrs. Ryan curtly, as she led the little flock to her own poor apartment where she fed them on the best she could afford, weak tea, baker’s stale bread, and a bit of cheese, but a feast to the famishing orphans whose thanks brought tears to her kind eyes.
Afterward she took them to look their last on the face of their dead before he was consigned to his grave among the city’s pauper dead, poor soul, the victim of penury and misfortune. Then she led them weeping away to their aunt, Mrs. Godfrey, who heard with grief of her poor brother’s death and looked with pity on his orphan children.