A Rough Shaking Part 44

"I should be very sorry to leave you."

"Yes, but that's not going to be! Why do you stay with papa? Were you in the house always--ever so long before I saw you?"

"No; a very little while only."

"Did you come in from the street?"

"Yes; I came in from the street. Your papa pays me to work for him."

"And if you wouldn't?"

"Then I should have no money, and nothing to eat, and nowhere to sleep at night."

"Would that make you uncomfable?"

"It would make me die."

"Have you a papa?"

"Yes, but he's far away."

"You could go to him, couldn't you?"

"One day I shall."

"Why don't you go now, and take me?"

"Because he died."

"What's _died_?"

"Went away out of sight, where we can't go to look for him till we go out of sight too."

"When will that be?"

"I don't know."

"Does anybody know?"

"n.o.body."

"Then perhaps you will never go?"

"We must go; it's only that n.o.body knows when."

"I think the when that n.o.body knows, mayn't never come.--Is that why you have to work?"

"Everybody has to work one way or another."

"I haven't to work!"

"If you don't work when you're old enough, you'll be miserable."

"_You're_ not old enough."

"Oh, yes, indeed I am! I've been working a long time now."

"Where? Not for papa?"

"No; not for papa."

"Why not? Why didn't you come sooner? Why didn't you come _much_ sooner--_ever_ so much sooner? Why did you make me wait for you all the time?"

"n.o.body ever told me you were waiting."

"n.o.body ever told me you were coming, but I knew."

"You had to wait for me, and you knew. I had to wait for you, and I didn't know! When we have time, I will tell you all about myself, and how I've been waiting too."

"Waiting for me?"

"No."

"Who for?"

"For my father and mother--and somebody else, I think."

"That's me."

"No; I'm waiting yet. I didn't know I was coming to you till I came, and there you were!"

The child was silent for a moment. Then she said thoughtfully,

"You will tell me _all_ about yourself! That _will_ be nice!--Can you tell stories?" she added. "--Of course you can! You can do _every_thing!"

"Oh, no, I can't!"

"Can't you?"

"No; I can do _some_ things--not many. I can love you, little one!--Now I must go, or I shall be late, and n.o.body ever ought to be late."

"Go then. I will go to my nursery and wait again."

She went down the stair without once looking behind her. Clare followed. On the next floor she went one way to her nursery, and he another to the back-stairs.

One of the causes and signs of Clare's manliness was, that he never aimed at being a man. Many men continue childish because they are always trying to act like men, instead of simply trying to do right. Such never develop true manliness, Clare's manhood stole upon him unawares. That which at once made him a man and kept him a child, was, that he had no regard for anything but what was real, that is, true.

All the day the thought kept coming, what could he do for the little girl Perhaps what stirred his feeling for her most, was a suspicion that she was neglected. But the careless treatment of a nurse was better for her than would have been the capricious blandishments and neglects of a mother like Mrs. Shotover. Clare, however, knew nothing yet about Ann's mother. He knew only, by the solemnly still ways of the child, that she must be much left to her own resources, and was wonderfully developed in consequence--whether healthily or not, he could not yet tell. The practical question was--how to contrive to be her occasional companion; how to offer to serve her.