"What's the matter, little boy?" she said, in a voice that sounded like music to the sad-hearted child.
They were the first kind words that had been spoken to him for the day, and they completely broke him down.
At length he stammered out between his sobs,
"Oh, I's so hungry an' cold, an' little Nelly's dead; an' all the world is agin me."
"Have you no father?" she said.
"No; I's no father, nor mother, nor sister, nor nobody. Nelly was all I had in the world, an' now she's dead."
"Poor boy!" said the kindly little voice. "And how do you get your living?"
"Oh, I sells matches or carries gents' portmantles when they'll let me, or anything honest as turns up."
"Well, don't think papa is unkind because he spoke cross to you, but he had been annoyed. And here is a shilling he gave me to-day; you need it more than I do, so I will give it to you. Are you here every day?"
"Ay, I's mostly here every day," said Benny, closing his fingers around the bright shilling as one in a dream.