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"Go outside, Francis!" she commanded, after fumbling with its contents.
He walked to the door and passed into the hall. Here he waited, listening listlessly, drumming softly upon the railing. The room was silent for a while; then he heard a muffled pounding, as of one stamping down the surface of the matted dirt. At last she called him and he went in again. Madam Grant's face was placid and kind.
She proceeded to occupy herself busily at the little oil stove, putting into the greasy frying-pan some chops which she had brought home with her. The spluttering and the pungent odor of the frying fat soon filled the two rooms. She cut a few slices from a loaf of stale bread, and set the meager repast forth upon the top of a wooden box.
"Come and have dinner, Francis!" she said, with a sweet look at him.
That the boy was far older than his years was evident by the way he watched her and took his cue from her, humoring her in her madder moments, restraining her in her moods of mystic exaltation, pathetically affectionate during her lucid intervals. She was in this last phase now, and from time to time, in the course of their meal, his hand stole to hers. Its pressure was softly returned.
"What have you read to-day?"
"I finished Gulliver."
"What did you think of it?"
"Why, somehow, it seemed just like it might be true."
"As if it might be true, Francis—what did I tell you?" Her tone grew severe, almost pedagogic. "You must be careful of your talk, my boy! Never forget; it is important. You'll never get on if you're careless and common. You will often be judged by your speech. What else did you read?"
"I tried Montaigne's Essays, but I couldn't understand much. It seemed so dull to me. But there's one, Whether the Governor of a Place Besieged Ought Himself to go out to Parley. I like that!"
Madam Grant laughed. "I'd like to have known Montaigne; he was a kind of old maid, but he was a modern, after all; common sense will do if you can't get humor."
"Where did you get all these books, Mamsy?"
Her face grew blank again; her eyes wandered. She recited in a sort of croon:
"Heard, have you? what? they have told you he never
repented his sin.
How do they know it? are they his mother? are you of
his kin?"
A frightened look came on the boy's face and his hand went to hers again.
"Mamsy, Mamsy!" he cried. "Come back, Mamsy! I want you!"
She turned to him as if she had never seen him before. "Oh!" she said, and drew aside. Then: "You mustn't ask questions, my boy."
"I won't, Mamsy."
"You're a good little boy and you came out of the dark," she pursued.
"Out of the dark?" he repeated, tempting her on. His curiosity was manifest.
"Don't you remember?"
"I'm not sure. They was a place—"
"There was a place," she corrected.
"There was a place where they beat me, and I ran away, and I found you, and you were good to me."
"No, it is you who have been good—I'm not good; I'm bad, Francis."
"I know you're good, Mamsy, because you teach me to do everything right, and I love you!"
With a quick impulse she clasped him to her, but even as she did so, her face changed again, this time with an expression of pain. She put her hand to her heart suddenly and moaned. He watched her in terror.
"Get the bottle!" she commanded huskily, dropping to the floor, to support herself on her elbow.
He ran to a little bath-room beside the closet, brought a bottle and spoon, poured out a dose of the medicine and put it to her lips. Finally she sat up, listening.
"Somebody's coming. She is coming! Come here, Francis! Quickly!"
Taking him by the hand, she led him to the closet in the back room, pushed him inside, closed the door and locked it.
It was dark in the closet, but he knew its contents as well as if he could see them. Upon a row of shelves were account-books and papers covered with dust. On nails in the wall his own small stock of clothes hung, and in a wooden box on the floor were his playthings—blocks, a wooden horse, several precious bits of twine and leather, a collection of spools and a toy globe. He sat down on this box patiently and waited.
Presently there came a knock at the hall door. Madam Grant opened it and some one entered. He heard his guardian's voice saying:
"Come in, Grace, here I am, such as I am, and here you are, such as you are." Then her voice changed, becoming tremulous and excited. "Ah, but she's beautiful! May I kiss her, Grace? Oh, what eyes! Her father's eyes, aren't they? Don't be afraid, Grace, let her come to me."
There was a reply in a soft voice which Francis could not make out, as they passed into the front room. He tried to peep through the keyhole, but as the key had been left in, he could see nothing. He sat down upon the box again to wait, playing with his toy globe. After a while he noticed a thin streak of light admitted by a crack in the panel of the door, and rose to see if he could see through it. At the height of his eye it was too narrow to show him anything in the room, but farther up it widened. He pulled down several account-books from the shelves and piled them upon the box. Standing tiptoe upon these, he found that he could get a clear though limited view of the bay-window.
Here a little girl sat quietly, vividly illuminated in the sunshine. She was scarcely more than four years of age and was dressed in a navy blue silk frock whose collar and pockets were elaborately trimmed with ruffles of white satin and bows of ribbon. She wore a white muslin cap decorated with ribbon, lace and rosebuds; white stockings showed above her high buttoned boots; her hair was a truant mass of fine-spun threads, curling, tawny yellow. Her face was round, her eyes extraordinarily wide apart under level, straight brows. What caught and held his attention, however, as he watched, was a velvety mole upon her left cheek, so placed as to be a piquant ornament rather than a disfigurement to her countenance. She sat listening, tightly holding a woolly lamb in her plump little arms. The two women were out of his range of vision.
The steady low sound of voices came to him, but he made no attempt to listen—his attention was riveted upon the figure of the little girl who was sharply focused, as in an opera-glass, directly in his field of view. Occasionally, as she was spoken to, she smiled, and her cheek dimpled; but she seemed to be looking at him, through the door. She scarcely moved her eyes, but kept them fixed in his direction, as if conscious of an invisible presence.
The women talked on. Occasionally Madam Grant's voice rose to a more excited note, and a few words came to him, betraying to his knowledge of her that her mood had been interrupted by her customary vagaries. At such times the little girl would withdraw her glance to gaze solemnly in Madam Grant's direction; she showed, however, no signs of alarm. It seemed, indeed, as if the little girl understood, even as he understood, the temporary aberration. Then her eyes would return to his, as if drawn back by his gaze.
So the scene lasted for a half-hour, during which time he caught no glimpse of the other visitor. At last a hand was outstretched and the little girl rose. Francis stepped down for a moment to rest himself from his strained position; when he had put his eye again to the crack she had passed out of his line of sight.
He was to catch a few words more, however, before the callers left.
"I'm