"'Who did you say he was?' I asked, and the child answered me:
"'Lord Hardy, mamma's friend. He is very rich and very nice. He gives me
lots of things, and sometimes buys us all first class tickets, and then
it is so grand. I don't like to go second-class, but, you see, papa is
very poor.'
"'How, then, can he afford to stop at expensive hotels?' I asked, and
she said, while a shadow came over her face:
"'We couldn't if we didn't have one small room on the top floor, where
I sleep on the lounge. I never go to _table d'hote_ but stay in my room
and eat whatever mamma can slip into her pocket without the waiters
seeing her. Sometimes it is not much, and then I am so hungry; but mamma
will get us an invitation to visit somebody soon, and then I can eat all
I want.'"
The guests had listened very attentively to this recital, and none more
so than Grey, who leaned eagerly forward, with quivering lips and
moistened eyes, as he exclaimed:
"Poor little girl, how I wish she had some of my dinner! Why didn't you
bring her home with you, away from her wicked mother?"
Miss McPherson did not reply, for there dawned upon her suddenly a fear
lest she had talked too much, and her manner changed at once, while she
sank into an abstracted mood, and her eyes had in them a far-off look,
as if she were seeing the child who came to her upon the sands of
Aberystwyth and looked into her face with eyes she had never been able
to forget, and which she could now see so plainly, though the little
girl was thousands of miles away.
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