ut it,' he said. 'Hollo, Mrs Blossom! just
step this way, if you please.'

There was a little kitchen at the back of the shop, from which came a
very savoury smell of cooking, as the door opened, and a round, fat,
rosy-cheeked woman, of about fifty years of age, looked out
inquiringly. She came a step or two nearer the door, as Meg's friend
beckoned to her with a clasp-knife he held in his hand.

'These little 'uns look cold and hungry, don't they, Mrs Blossom?' he
said. 'You smell something as smells uncommon good, don't you?' he
asked of Meg, who had sniffed a little, unconsciously.

'Yes, please, sir,' answered Meg.

'I've ate as much as ever I can eat for to-day,' said her friend, 'so
you give 'em the rest, Mrs Blossom, and I'll be off. Only just tell me
why father's not come home in his ship.'

'He was took bad on the other side of the world,' replied Meg, looking
up tearfully into his good-tempered face, 'and they was forced to leave
him behind in a hospital. That's why.'

'And what's mother doing?' he asked.

'Mother's dead,' she answered.

'Dead!' echoed her friend. 'And who's taking care of you young 'uns?'

'There's nobody to take care of us but God,' said Meg, simply and
softly.

'Well, I never!' cried Mrs Blossom, seizing the baby out of Meg's, and
clasping it in her own arms. 'I never heard anything like that.'

'Nor me,' said the man, catching up Robin, and bearing him off into the
warm little kitchen, where a saucepan of hot tripe was simmering on the
hob, and a round table, with two plates upon it, was drawn up close to
the fire. He put Robin down on Mrs Blossom's seat, and lifted Meg into
a large arm-chair he had just quitted.

'I guess you could eat a morsel of tripe,' he said, ladling it out in
overflowing spoonfuls upon the plates. 'Mrs Blossom, some potatoes, if
you please, and some bread; and do you feed the baby whilst the little
woman gets her dinner. Now, I'm off. Mrs Blossom, you settle about
'em coming here again.'

He was off, as he said, in an instant. Meg sat in her large arm-chair,
grasping a big knife and fork in her small hands, but she could not
swallow a morsel at first for watching Robin and the baby, who was
sucking in greedily spoonfuls of potatoes, soaked in the gravy. Mrs
Blossom urged her to fall to, and she tried to obey; but her pale face
quivered all over, and letting fall her knife and fork, she hid it in
her trembling hands.

'If you please, ma