The child’s eyes sparkled with pleasure; she looked quite different.
“It’s the first real one we’ve ever seen,” said she and Norna together.
“Poor little man!” said their governess; “he must be hungry to be so tame. Let us throw crumbs every morning, children. I am sure your mamma won’t mind. This terrace is a splendid place.”
The idea pleased them mightily. I hid myself in the ivy for a few moments, and when I came out again, there was a delightful spread all ready. So I flew down and began to profit by it, expressing my thanks, of course, in a well-bred manner. The window was still open, and I heard some words that Miss Meadows murmured to herself:
“I wish I could find out some little service for others that they could do, even this first Christmas,” she said.
“They would be so much happier, poor little things! Dear robin, I am even grateful to you for making me think of throwing out crumbs.”
She looked so sweet that my heart warmed to her, and I wished I could help her. And at that moment an idea struck me. You will soon hear what it was.
I had another visit to pay that morning; indeed I had been on my way to do so when the exciting news about the Manor House attracted me thither. But now I flew off, to the little home where I was always welcome. It was a very small cottage at the outskirts of the same village of which the home of the newly-returned family was the great house. In this cottage lived a couple and their two children—a boy and a girl. They had always been poor, but striving and thrifty, so that the little place looked bright and comfortable though so bare, and the children tidy and rosy. But now, alas! things had changed for the worse. A bad accident to the father, who was a woodcutter, had entirely crippled him; and though some help was given them, it was all the poor mother could do to keep out of the workhouse. I made a point of visiting the cottage every day; it cheered them up, and there were generally some crumbs for me. But this morning—not that it mattered to me after my good breakfast at the Manor House—there were none; and as I alighted on the sill of the little kitchen and looked in, everything was dull and cheerless. No fire was lighted; the two children, Jem and Joyce, sat crouched together on the settle by the empty grate as if to gain a little warmth from each other. They looked blue and pinched, and scarcely awake; but when they saw me at the window they brightened up a little.
“There’s robin,” said Joyce. “Poor robin! we’ve nothing for you this morning.”
A small pane was broken in the window and pasted over with paper, but a corner was torn, and so I could hear what they said.