‘How old is she?’ asked White, desperately, not that he had any special reason for asking, but because, in his perplexity, he hardly knew what to say.
Uncle Luke cocked his eye, calculating, and after due deliberation replied—
‘Mother says it be just eight year come Whit-Monday since you brung her to us. She remembers the year well, mother does, ’cause ’twas the year when her cousin Jim he was drowned off Woolwich Pier, after he had deserted and was running away for his precious life; and they held a ’quest upon him, and said he was drownded accidental, and had hisself to blame.’
‘Between eight and nine years old,’ muttered White, pursuing his own feeble reflections. ‘Is there no place where she could be put? No person who, for a small consideration, would take her in?’
Uncle Luke shook his head dolefully. He had never questioned for a moment but that White would give the child a welcome, and he was quite incapable of conceiving the manifold objections there might be to her immediate adoption.
Things were at this juncture when Madame de Bemy, who occupied the adjoining house, and from whom White rented the studio, came in smiling. She was a stout little old lady, with a very profound respect for her tenant, who had been useful to her in many ways, as indeed he was almost invariably to everybody with whom he came in close contact. To his surprise she cut the Gordian knot by offering to take care of the child on White’s behalf.
All this time Madeline had been listening with growing suspicion. At last the whole truth dawned upon her, and she burst into lamentation. Clinging to Uncle Luke, she cried that she would never leave him, and that she would return to Grayfleet in his company.
It was an exciting scene, over which we have no intention to linger.
Uncle Luke did not depart that night. They made him up a bed in the corner of the studio, where he lay awake till morning, weeping and wondering, but still firm in his desire to see Madeline made into a little lady. The child herself was taken care of by Madame de Berny. But she would not depart from the studio until Uncle Luke had avowed positively that he would be there, waiting for her, in the morning. His simple promise satisfied her, for never in all her life had she known him to break his word.