"It's not much to forgive 'em the rent, sir," she said. "Who could take it from them!"
24. "Well, well!" said my guardian to us two. "It is enough that the time will come when this good woman will find that it was much, and that forasmuch as she did it unto the least of these—This child," he added, after a few moments, "could she possibly continue this?"
25. "Really, sir, I think she might," said Mrs. Blinder, getting her heavy breath by painful degrees. "She's as handy as it's possible to be. Bless you, sir, the way she tended the two children after the mother died was the talk of the yard. And it was a wonder to see her with him after he was ill, it really was. 'Mrs. Blinder,' he said to me, the very last he spoke—he was lying there—'Mrs. Blinder, I saw an angel sitting in this room last night along with my child, and I trust her to our Father.'"
26. We kissed Charley, and took her down-stairs with us, and stopped outside the house to see her run away to her work. I don't know where she was going, but we saw her run—such a little, little creature, in her womanly bonnet and apron—through a covered way at the bottom of the court, and melt into the city's strife and sound like a dewdrop in an ocean.
III
27. One night, after I had gone to my room, I heard a soft tap at my door. So I said, "Come in," and there came in a pretty little girl, neatly dressed in mourning, who dropped a courtesy.
28. "If you please, miss," said the little girl, in a soft voice, "I am Charley."
"Why, so you are!" said I, stooping down in astonishment, and giving her a kiss. "How glad I am to see you, Charley!"
29. "If you please, miss," pursued Charley, in the same soft voice, "I'm your maid."
"Charley?"