But Ada could see no fault in Marjory, for Marjory was clever enough to deceive her. And so while Ada was toiling night and day to bring her up as a refined and cultivated child, Marjory was hankering after the society of vulgar companions, and paying little attention to her lessons. But little Sadie was a sweet and loving child, and her devotion to Ada was touching. At the boarding-house dinner-table it was a pretty sight to see Ada Nicoli with a little sister on each side of her. She was the prettiest, daintiest creature herself, and it was her greatest joy to see people look with admiration at her two children, as she called them. They were always wonderfully clean and freshly dressed.
“How long can she keep it up?” the fat boarder said. “She fairly amazes me, that girl. She had never even brushed her own hair a year and a half ago, and now she’s keeping these two children so sweet and fresh, and bringing them up so well, too. They are a deal nicer children than when they first came, but it’s wearing her out—that light burning up in her room till past twelve at night, and she’s up by seven o’clock in the morning.”
Beside the people in the boarding-house there was someone else who had been watching Ada working the soft curves of her face into sharper lines, and seeing the deeper shadows come below her bright eyes. It was an old man who drove to business every day on the Fifth Avenue stage-coach. He always knew that, if it was a wet day, Ada would be waiting at 20, East 32nd Street for the coach to pass, but if it was fine, she would save her twenty-five cents and walk. He was an observant old man, and somewhat of a character. He was supposed to be a miser, and very wealthy, though he lived in a small tenement house, and kept no servant. While he sat huddled up in the corner of the coach, which rattled and shook over the stones of Fifth Avenue like a relic from the last century, he had noticed every detail of the girl’s dress, he had seen the once pretty frocks become almost threadbare, and the dainty shoes lose their freshness. He had made inquiries, and found out her story. One day she had given the conductor a five-dollar bill to pay for her fare. The man gave her back a quarter too much change. The old man watched her count the money, and look at the extra quarter. It was bitterly cold weather, and he knew that that quarter would pay for her journey there and back for another two days. The girl’s expression said it as plainly as words could have done. “You’ve given me a quarter too much,” she said, with a little tremble in her voice. The man did not even say “Thank you,” but snatched the money out of her hand roughly. The old man smiled; he had long ago lost his belief in human nature, and this little act of honesty on the girl’s part did him good. If was like going near a fire on a cold winter day. The meeting of Ada coming and going from her work grew to be the one interest in the old hermit’s life. He had watched her so carefully that he had gained a knowledge of her life of which she was wholly unconscious. He had seen her tenderness to her little sisters when he met them out together on a Saturday afternoon. Often he had wandered over Central Park with his keen eyes looking out eagerly for the graceful figure of Ada Nicoli laced arm-in-arm with the two young children, and when they stopped to feed the swans on the lake, or rest in some summer-house, the old man seated himself where he could feast his eyes on his adopted family unseen.
Two or three times he had seen something very like tears in Ada’s eyes when a carriage with some beautifully-dressed women in it would pass the girl, and they would give her a stiff little bow of recognition.
It was one of the coldest winters New York had experienced for many years, but the old man’s shrivelled-up heart was, day by day, stretching and expanding towards the girl, who was always gentle. She had many times helped him as he got in and out of the Fifth Avenue stage-coach, and she had often offered to give up her seat in the snug top corner in exchange for his draughty one near the door, but beyond these natural, kindly little attentions, Ada Nicoli had thought little about the old man, whom so many people laughed and poked fun at. He had even taken the trouble to follow her to the private asylum where her mother lived, and would wait there until she came out with her sweet blue eyes filled with sadness. He had heard of her father’s cruel desertion, and many a time the old man could feel his fingers close upon the villain’s neck in his longing to thrash him.
On this particular day, when everything was a world of snow, and the temperature was twenty degrees below zero, the old man had been slowly following Ada to her mother’s home. He had long since learnt that Wednesdays were the visiting days in this house of sorrow, and that Ada Nicoli never failed to be there in her lunch hour. The house was in a quiet street, where there was little traffic or noise, and Ada hurried along as fast as her numbed feet would carry her. In the old man’s eyes she had never looked so beautiful, for the cold, crisp air had brought a lovely colour to her cheeks, and her hair was bright gold in the winter sunlight. Suddenly he saw her stop, and bend over something that had fallen in the snow on the side-walk. It was the figure of a man, and from his position it looked as if he was intoxicated, rather than overcome with the cold. There was no one in sight but the old man who was following her. Ada touched the man, and spoke to him, but he could give no coherent answer. He was too drunk to tell her even what his name was. When the old man came up to her she was searching the road with a troubled look.
“There is no sleigh in sight,” she said, “and he must not lie here, he will freeze to death.”
“Perhaps he ain’t of much account living,” the old man said; “folks like that are better dead.”
“Oh, don’t say that,” Ada cried, in a reproachful voice; “he may have a wife and family dependent upon him.”