Mrs. Riley's tears stopped flowing for a moment in her surprise. Then Emily related the story of her trip to Hillsboro and the conversation of the boys which she had overheard, not forgetting to explain her own share in frightening them away.
"So perhaps by my officiousness I converted an innocent prank into something more serious," she concluded.
"If it was the price of it only, I'd give double that, and land knows I've no stockingful, like some that go to the city for help, for I'd rather rub my knuckles off than beg," said the good woman.
There was a piece of old carpet stuffed in one window-pane, adequate in summer, no doubt, but hardly impregnable to the winter winds—and Emily judged from the table before her that more than once the mother and son had sat down to a Barmecide feast, in which the imagination had to be called on to help appease the palate. So it was by inheritance that the Whistler came by his aversion to Shagarach's charity.
"I think it strange Walter and I have never become acquainted."
"Indeed he knows all your goodness to me."
"Is he still at school?"
"Graduated this year, and his masters recommend him for the best-tempered boy and as innocent—but full of the old Harry, like his father, that would always be dancing, even with seven children between him and his youth."
"What a pity if he should turn out bad now after you've made so many sacrifices for him."
"Oh, for the sacrifices, Walter's willing to take his share. With his paper route he would bring me in sometimes $2 a week, and there was nothing he wouldn't do, distribute handbills, deliver baskets in the meat-market on Saturday nights. Look, here's the shoeblack's kit he just bought. Come in, Miss Barlow."