"To keep 'em safe, sir, don't you see?" said Charley. "Mrs. Blinder comes up now and then, and Mr. Gridley comes up sometimes, and perhaps I can run in sometimes; and they can play, you know, and Tom isn't afraid of being locked up. Are you, Tom?"
"No—o!" said Tom, stoutly.
19. "When it comes on dark, the lamps are lighted down in the court, and they show up here quite bright—almost quite bright. Don't they, Tom?"
"Yes, Charley," said Tom; "almost quite bright."
20. "Then, he's as good as gold," said the little creature—oh! in such a motherly, womanly way. "And when Emma's tired, he puts her to bed. And when he's tired, he goes to bed himself. And when I come home and light the candle and have a bit of supper, he sits up again and has it with me. Don't you, Tom?"
21. "Oh, yes, Charley," said Tom. "That I do!" And either in this glimpse of the great pleasure of his life, or in gratitude and love for Charley, who was all in all to him, he laid his face among the scanty folds of her frock and passed from laughing into crying.
22. It was the first time since our entry that a tear had been shed among these children. The little orphan girl had spoken of their father and their mother as if all that sorrow were subdued by the necessity of taking courage, and by her childish importance in being able to work, and by her bustling, busy way. But now, when Tom cried—although she sat quite tranquil, looking quietly at us, and did not by any movement disturb a hair of the head of either of her little charges—I saw two silent tears fall down her face.
Mrs. Blinder
23. I stood at the window with Ada, pretending to look at the housetops, and the blackened stack of chimneys, and the poor plants, and the birds, in little cages, belonging to the neighbors, when I found that Mrs. Blinder, from the shop below, had come in—perhaps it had taken her all this time to get upstairs—and was talking to my guardian.