"Then you do not think it safe for the children, Matthew?" inquired his wife.
"Oh yes; it's safe enough, if they only look sharp. There is seldom much traffic on a Sunday. If the little ones like going, let them go. Nought never comes to harm."
"Father," asked little Bessie, gravely, "what does 'nought' mean?"
But Matthew Reardon had resumed his writing, and the question remained unanswered.
[CHAPTER III.]
THE WOLF.
THE home of Matthew Reardon and his family consisted of one large room, with a kind of closet opening out of it, in which the children slept. The walls were of dark oak and panelled, with a carved chimney-piece, and deep recesses, and, best of all, a lofty ceiling, such as one seldom meets with in those close and confined dwelling-places in which the London poor are obliged to live.
It was a gloomy room, nevertheless, especially when evening came, and the dim light of the one candle by which Matthew and his wife worked cast all beyond into deep shadow. Then the little handful of fire gleamed and flickered in the large old-fashioned grate, and the shadows began to dance in a strange grotesque manner on the dark oak panels.
A little apart, in one of those deep recesses, sat, on the evening of which we write—and, indeed, on most evenings—the two little children, close together, and speaking in whispers for fear of disturbing their father. One would almost wonder what they could find to talk about—their mother often did—but somehow, they always seemed to have a thousand things to say to one another, especially after they began to attend the Sunday school.
It was a dull life for those lonely children sitting thus hour after hour in the dusk, and neither playing nor speaking aloud, or having any one to speak to or amuse them, and with no sound to be heard save the scratch, scratch, scratch, of Matthew's pen as it flew rapidly over the paper; or the occasional click of their mother's scissors, although she was very careful in this respect, well knowing how every little noise jarred upon the sensitive nerves of her husband, rendered painfully irritable by over-work.