The children looked at him curiously with their big eyes, which they had made so much larger with crying. They looked pale and fragile in their black frocks, with their anxious little faces turned up to him.
“Our brother!” they both said in a breath, wondering; but they did not shrink from the kiss he gave, turning with a quivering of real emotion from one to another.
“Yes, my dears,” he said, “and a good brother I’ll be to you, so help me God!” the little gentleman’s brown face got puckered and tremulous, as if he would cry. “I don’t want to harm anybody,” he said. “I’ll take care of the boys as if they were my own. I’ll do anything for Paul that he’ll let me, though I can’t give up my rights to him; and I’ll be fond of you all if you let me,” cried Mr. Gus, dropping the hands of the children, and holding out his own to the colder, more difficult, audience round him. They all stood looking at him, with keen wonder, opposition, almost hatred. Was it possible they could feel otherwise to the stranger who thus had fallen among them, taking everything that they thought was theirs out of their hands?
END OF VOL. II.
LONDON: R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS.