“Yes, sir—very near. I know where it is,” said the child. “I got him once for my mother.”
“If you will lead me to him,” said Tiny, his voice broken as his heart was, “I will do a good turn for you. You won’t be the loser by it. Who takes care of you?”
“Of me, sir?” asked the girl, as if surprised that he should think that any one took care of her. “Nobody. I’m all alone.”
“Alone! alone!” repeated Tiny: “your hand is very little; you are a mite of a girl to be alone.”
“They’re all dead but me, every one of ’em. Yes, sir, they are.”
“No mother?” said Tiny, with a choking voice—thinking of the kind heart and tender loving eyes away off in the lonely little cottage on the border of the forest—“no mother, little girl? Was that what you said?”
“Dead,” replied the child.
“Did you love her?” asked Tiny, the poet, while his heart wept burning tears.
The girl said not a word, but Tiny heard her sob, and held her hand close in his own, as though he would protect her, even if he were blind, while he said aloud—
“Lead me to the physician, little friend.”