"Nobody being able to say just how she would feel in that emergency, she bustled round, sniffing at imaginary Orphan Asylums, and nodding her head sagaciously, saying, 'We will show them a thing or two about Orphan Asylums, won't we now?'
"But little Angel had a plan of her own. Away down in her child's heart there was a sacred memory of a mother's anxious, tear-stained face, and grandma trying to comfort her with the message that had been the solace of her own grief-stricken old age:
"'Never despair, daughter! Remember, 'whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth.' I had a heavenly dream about William, last night, and I feel sure that he'll find the right way at last. We'll pray for him together, and surely God will hear us.'
"'I believe that, Mother Way,' said the wife, eagerly. 'I could not die and leave him to perish. He loves his children devotedly, and I believe this child (drawing Angel nearer to her) has been sent by God for his salvation.'
"'May the Lord bless and strengthen her for the work,' said grandma in a tremulous voice, laying her thin hand upon the child's head, and Angel felt from that moment set apart, consecrated, as it were, by the last words of that dying saint, for that night, Grandma Way went to heaven. She remembered it now, and knew the time had come for her to act her part. Mrs. Macarty became her sole confidential adviser.
"'I am twelve years old,' said Angel, 'and baby Matie is nearly two; I can take care of her, if you will show me a little now and then, and I am going to try and get along here till my father comes back again.'
"'Just hear the little woman, now,' said her listener, in open-mouthed admiration. 'Sure it would be a tiptop way to manage, and I'll do my best to help you through with it.'
"And this committee of two on ways and means proved so efficient, that when William Way returned, sober and downcast, Angel just lifted up little Mary, as bright and happy as if nothing had ever occurred to sadden them, and that this very room had not recently been the scene of a dreadful tragedy, of which the helpless babes were the only witnesses.
"'Ain't it wonderful?' said Mrs. Maloney, that same day; 'Way's got off with just sixty days, and come back again, and that child putting on the airs of a woman, a tryin' to keep house for him.'
"'And I'm sure that's right enough,' said Mrs. Macarty. 'They could not make it out that he killed the woman directly, and who cares for poor folks? She's dead and gone, and that's the end of her. Little them that makes the laws care! If it was one of them there rich men on the avenue, or a flaunting theater actress, or somebody had got jealous of somebody else, and committed murder, there'd be a fine sensation. An' there'd be pictures in all the shop windows, of how he or she looked in all sorts of situations, how they looked when they was a dyin', and how they looked after they was dead; and what the murderer eat for his supper the night it all got found out, or whether he did not eat anything at all; and how many fine ladies had been to console him, and how many equally fine ministers had been to pray with him. The newsboys would be shriekin' 'murder!' at every crossin', and every corner you turned, it would be 'hev a paper, mum, with the latest proceedings about the trial?' And to crown all, you'd come home, half distracted, to find the children playing with little gallowses, and askin' when pa was goin' to murder somebody, till you felt chilled to the very marrow of your bones.'