"Well, let her go somewhere. I want to hear her," responded the gentleman.
All this time the two had seen the shadow of something hovering backwards and forwards on the edge of the door; now they followed a slight little figure, wrapped in a patched cloak, patched hood, and leaving the mark of wet feet as she walked. Curious to see her face—she was very small—John Harvey lured her to the farthest part of the great room where there were but few gentlemen, and then motioned her to sing. The little one looked timidly up. Her cheek was of olive darkness, but a flush rested there, and out of the thinnest face, under the arch of broad temples, deepened by masses of the blackest hair looked two eyes whose softness and tender pleading would have touched the hardest heart.
"That little thing is sick, I believe," said John Harvey, compassionately.
"What do you sing, child?" he added.
"I sing Italian or a little English."
John Harvey looked at her shoes. "Why," he exclaimed, and his lips quivered, "her feet are wet to her ankles; she will catch her death of cold."
By this time the child had begun to sing, pushing back her hood, and folding before her her little thin fingers. Her voice was wonderful; and simple and common as were both air and words, the pathos of the tones drew together several of the merchants in the reading-room. The little song commenced thus:
"There is a happy land,
Far, far away."
Never could the voice, the manner, of that child be forgotten. There almost seemed a halo around her head; and when she had finished, her great speaking eyes turned toward John Harvey.
"Look here, child; where did you learn that song?" he asked.
"At the Sunday School, Sir."