Charley told me where he lived—“Up Stagg’s Entry”—for I said I would call to see him. Just for a day or two there seemed to be no time; but I got there one evening when Tod had gone to the syren’s. It was a dark, dusky place, this Stagg’s Entry, and, I think, is done away with now, with several houses crowded into it. Asking for Charles Tasson, of a tidy, motherly woman on the stairs, she went before me, and threw open a door.
“Here’s a gentleman to see you, Mr. Charley.”
He was lying in a bed at the end of the room near the fire, under the lean-to roof. If I had been shocked at seeing him in the open air, in the glad sunshine, I was doubly so now in the dim light of the tallow candle. He rose in bed.
“It’s very kind of you to come here, sir! I’m sure I didn’t expect you to remember it.”
“Are you worse, Charley?”
“I caught a fresh cold, sir, that day at Godstowe. And I’m as weak as a rat too—hardly able to creep out of bed. Nanny, bring a chair for this gentleman.”
One of the handiest little girls I ever saw, with the same shining blue eyes that he had, and plump, pretty cheeks, laid hold of a chair. I took it from her and sat down.
“Is this your sister, Charley?”
“Yes, sir. There’s only us two left together. We were eight of us once. Three went abroad, and one is in London, and two dead.”