Presently there was a low tap at the door; so low that it had to be repeated before Mrs. Reardon, who thought at first that it must be a mistake, arose to open it. But there was no one there, only a parcel directed to her in a large scrawling hand, with a paper bag placed carefully on the top. If she had looked up instead of looking down the wide staircase, which she never thought of doing, she might have seen a pale girlish face leaning over the banisters, with a pitiful expression in her large wistful eyes.
When Mrs. Reardon had gone in again and closed the door, the girl came down a few steps and stood a moment, wet and weary as she was, to listen to the joyful exclamations of the children, as their mother, carefully opening the paper bag, took out the bunch of grapes, which our readers may remember to have seen before.
"Oh, mother!" exclaimed Bessie. "How beautiful! What are they?"
"And see," added Polly, peeping into the parcel, "tea, and sugar, and rice, and I don't know what besides!"
Mrs. Reardon did not reply. She was watching her sick husband eat the grapes, and crying quietly the while for joy. How grateful they were to his poor parched lips, and how he did enjoy them! It seemed as if he could not eat them fast enough. After a time, however, he remembered the children. They had never tasted, scarcely even seen, a grape before, but nevertheless the poor little things would not touch above one or two, and, when he insisted upon their taking more, gave them quietly to their mother, who put them aside for him to eat in the night.
"Who could have brought them?" said Mrs. Reardon, wonderingly, as she turned over the paper in which they had come, and once more examined the direction.
"It would not be Mrs. Browne, I suppose!" suggested Matthew, who, what with the sleep and the grapes, was feeling greatly refreshed.
Mrs. Reardon shook her head.
"I know who brought them," said Bessie, mysteriously.
"Who was it, Bess?"