"When she wakes and feels a little rested, we shall see," said Mrs. Bird, who began to busy herself with her knitting.
Mr. Bird took up a newspaper, and pretended to be reading it, but it was not long before he turned to his wife and said, "I say, wife, couldn't she wear one of your gowns; and there's that old cloak that you keep on purpose to put over me when I take my afternoon's nap, you might give her that; she needs clothes."
Mrs. Bird simply replied, "We'll see;" but a quiet smile passed over her face as she remembered the conversation they had had together that very night before Eliza and little Harry came to their door.
After an hour or two, Eliza awoke, and Mr. and Mrs. Bird again went to the kitchen. As they entered, poor Eliza lifted her dark eyes, and fixed them on Mrs. Bird, with such a forlorn and imploring expression, that the tears came into the kind-hearted woman's eyes.
"You need not be afraid of anything; we are friends here, poor woman! Tell me where you came from, and what you want?" said she.
"I came from Kentucky," said poor Eliza.
"And what induced you to run away?" said Mrs. Bird.
The woman looked up with a keen, scrutinising glance, and it did not escape her that Mrs. Bird was dressed in deep mourning.
"Ma'am," she said, suddenly, "have you ever lost a child?"
The question was unexpected, and it was a thrust on a new wound; for it was only a month since a darling child of the family had been laid in the grave.