"
"Your mother?" Asked Cousin Bessie gently.
"No, ma'am, she was more, she was my wife, but only for a year. When I
lost her I lost my luck and my courage, and everything. I've hardly
done a day's good since."
He drew the back of one brawny, dirty hand across his eyes and turned
away his head. Cousin Bessie was looking at him with a great pity in
her countenance.
"Have you a child?" she next asked.
"One, ma'am, a little girl, but not like the mother."
"Where is she?"
"On the streets, like myself, begging her bread and going to ruin," he
answered in dogged despair.
"How old is she?" cousin Bessie asked, with renewed interest.
"Maybe thirteen or thereabout, ma'am, poor, small thing," he replied
with a dash of fatherly love.
"Can she read or write?" was cousin Bessie's next query.
"I couldn't say, ma'am. I never taught her. I've been a heartless
wretch and didn't mind about her much."
"I am afraid you have done her a great injustice," said cousin Bessie,
turning to re-enter the house. "I hope you will try to make some
amends. Begin your work, like a good fellow, and I will see you again
before you go."
She came back to her duties in the kitchen with a thoughtful face and
a slow, measured step.
"Is your hero in rags at his work?" I asked playfully, when she had
closed the door behind her.
"Yes, I am glad to say," she answered, "manual labor is what these
fellows want. I shall keep him busy until evening, now that he has
started, it will only cost me a few pence, and it will keep him out of
so much harm.
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