"Indeed it's troubling you
too much, Sir!" the maid exclaimed. "She can walk very well on the flat."
But the arm, that was twined about my neck, clung just an atom more
closely at the suggestion, and decided me to say "She's no weight,
really. I'll carry her a little further. I'm going your way."
The nurse raised no further objection: and the next speaker was a
ragged little boy, with bare feet, and a broom over his shoulder, who
ran across the road, and pretended to sweep the perfectly dry road in
front of us. "Give us a 'ap'ny!" the little urchin pleaded, with a
broad grin on his dirty face.
"Don't give him a 'ap'ny!" said the little lady in my arms. The words
sounded harsh: but the tone was gentleness itself. "He's an idle
little boy!" And she laughed a laugh of such silvery sweetness as I had
never yet heard from any lips but Sylvie's. To my astonishment, the
boy actually joined in the laugh, as if there were some subtle sympathy
between them, as he ran away down the road and vanished through a gap
in the hedge.
But he was back in a few moments, having discarded his broom and
provided himself, from some mysterious source, with an exquisite
bouquet of flowers. "Buy a posy, buy a posy! Only a 'ap'ny!" he
chanted, with the melancholy drawl of a professional beggar.
"Don't buy it!" was Her Majesty's edict as she looked down, with a
lofty scorn that seemed curiously mixed with tender interest, on the
ragged creature at her feet.
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