"And Deb! Where is Deb?" asked Annette, eagerly.
"Oh, you shall see her presently. Deb is my right hand. Now I must go and fetch you the milk and a slice of home-made cake, for you must be starving."
Annette looked round the room as Mother Midge trotted off. It was a small room, and very simply furnished. There was a square of carpet that did not quite cover the white boards; there were one or two well-worn easy-chairs, a work-table, a comfortable-looking couch, and some well-arranged book-shelves.
"This is the Midge's nest," observed Averil, who noticed Annette's perplexity. "Ah! I see you are dying to question me; but there is no time now. Mother Midge is a wonderful woman, though I dare say a certain person, if she knew of her existence, would certainly call her a plain, homely little body. But she has a great soul. She is one of God's heroines!"
"My cousin, forgive me if I am pertinacious. Who are these people? I do not understand."
"Lottie, when she wants to tease me, calls them my waifs and strays. But they are no such things. This is my family. I lead two lives, Annette. When things go wrong with me, and I get out of harmony with my surroundings, I take refuge with Mother Midge and her children. Nothing does me so much good. Hush! not a word of this at Redfern House. No one knows of the Dove-cote but Lottie. Ah! here come our refreshments. Mind you praise the cake, for if there be one thing on which Mother Midge prides herself it is her seed-cake."
Annette ate and drank in a sort of dream. What new views in life were opening before her! This, then, was Averil's secret—the little refuge that the young heiress had provided for a few stricken creatures who had fallen in the battle of life.
Annette was to hear all about it presently; now she could only look round her and wonder, with a sort of touched reverence.
"Now we must go and see Jack," observed Averil, as she swept the crumbs from her lap. "Annette, do you see there are two cottages? We have added a new wing. There was no room big enough for the children, and no place for them to sleep. This is the Corporal's room, as we call it, where the old men sit and smoke their pipes. This"—as they entered a clean, spacious room, with a long table and some forms, and a few gay Scripture prints hanging on the walls—"this is where the children live. They are with the Corporal now, all except Jack"—walking up to the window, where there was a small couch covered with a red quilt. "Well, my little man, how does the world go with you?"
"Thank you, ma'am, I'm spry!" returned a small chirping voice, and a shock head, covered with rough, carroty hair, raised itself from the pillow. Annette gave a pitying exclamation. Could it be a child's face, with those hollow, sunken features, those lusterless, staring eyes? A skeleton hand and arm were thrust out from the quilt. "I'm spry, ma'am, and the Dodger is spry too. Come out, you varmint, when the leddy's asking after your 'ealth!"—and Jack, panting, and with infinite difficulty, extracted a miserable-looking gray creature, evidently a veteran who had certainly run the tether of its nine lives, and was much battered in consequence.