“What are you staring at?” the girl asked, presently, growing uneasy over the fixedness of his gaze. “Do you see anything uncommon about me?”
“Where's mother?” he asked, dropping his eyes, and turning from her.
“In there, asleep. You needn't talk quite so loud; it won't hurt her to get a bit of rest. She sat up till morning, poking at your old coat.”
Dirk looked down at it thoughtfully. There had been an attempt to make it decent, although the setting of the patches showed an unpractised hand, and they were of a strikingly different color from the coat itself.
“You might have done it for her, then, in the daytime,” he said, briefly, and added, “Where's father?”
The girl shrugged her shoulders.
“How should I know? Where he is most of the time; you know more about it than I do, or ought to; you live on the street.”
He gave her an answer which seemed to surprise her:—
“I say, Mart, what is the use in being so horrid cross all the time?”
“You are so good-natured,” she said, “and everything is so nice and pleasant around me, it is a wonder that I should ever be cross!”