“But you will,—won't you?” she rejoined, looking him coaxingly in the face.
Unable to withstand this appeal, Thames gave the required promise, adding,—“Oh! Winny, I wish Mr. Wood had been my father, as well as yours.”
“So do I!” she cried; “for then you would have been really my brother. No, I don't, either; because——”
“Well, Winny?”
“I don't know what I was going to say,” she added, in some confusion; “only I'm sorry you were born a gentleman.”
“Perhaps, I wasn't,” returned Thames, gloomily, as the remembrance of Jonathan Wild's foul insinuation crossed him. “But never mind who, or what I am. Give me this picture. I'll keep it for your sake.”
“I'll give you something better worth keeping,” she answered, detaching the ornament from her neck, and presenting it to him; “this contains a lock of my hair, and may remind you sometimes of your little sister. As to the picture, I'll keep it myself, though, if you do go I shall need no memorial of you. I'd a good many things to say to you, besides—but you've put them all out of my head.”
With this, she burst into tears, and sank with her face upon his shoulder. Thames did not try to cheer her. His own heart was too full of melancholy foreboding. He felt that he might soon be separated—perhaps, for ever—from the fond little creature he held in his arms, whom he had always regarded with the warmest fraternal affection, and the thought of how much she would suffer from the separation so sensibly affected him, that he could not help joining in her grief.
From this sorrowful state he was aroused by a loud derisive whistle, followed by a still louder laugh; and, looking up, he beheld the impudent countenance of Jack Sheppard immediately before him.
“Aha!” exclaimed Jack, with a roguish wink, “I've caught you,—have I?”