“You think it’s Finnegan,” said Dulcie, gently, “but perhaps it’s something else. Do you remember your mother?”
“Sure,” responded Rosy Finnegan, stopping short in her astonishment; “me mother’s home.”
Dulcie was conscious of a sensation of disappointment at this reply, but Paul was not so easily daunted.
“Does she beat you?” he inquired, abruptly.
Rosy grinned.
“I guess she do, sometimes,” she admitted. Dulcie felt her spirits rising again.
“I hope she isn’t very cruel,” she said, sympathetically. “Perhaps she isn’t really your own mother.”
“She’s me mother all right,” persisted Rosy. “What makes you say she ain’t?”
“Why—why,” faltered Dulcie, finding some difficulty in explaining, “we don’t know, of course, but we think perhaps you may have been stolen.”
“The stolen child’s” dirty little face grew suddenly very red.