_your_ Paw and Maw?" he inquired of Cis, who knew names and dates and
facts about her parents, but was completely in the dark as to the
whereabouts of any living kinspeople. She had lived in a flat in the
next block till her father died. When her mother married Tom Barber, she
had moved out of her birthplace and into the area building. And that was
all there was to tell, except that her own full name was Narcissa Amy
Way.

"Cute!" declared One-Eye, going a beet-red.

"Have _you_ got a mother?" asked Cis.

"Both dead," answered One-Eye, knowing that the two would understand
what he meant.

"Three orphans," returned Cis. The blue eyes misted, and the pointed,
pink chin quivered. And the others knew what _she_ meant.

Indeed, at the sight of her brimming eyes One-Eye felt so keenly that,
without warning, he put his head back in a most surprising fashion,
opened his mouth, shut that one eye, and broke into a strange plaint.
The others concluded that One-Eye was making a curious, hoarse noise
ceilingward for some reason. Presently, however, Cis made out that the
noise was a tune: a tune weird but soul-stirring. Music, as Cis could
see, was One-Eye's medium of expressing his emotions. And then and there
it became her firm conviction that he was bearing a great and secret
sorrow.

It was Johnnie who first learned the words of the tune. And when he
could repeat them to Cis, both realized how appropriate they had been
under the circumstances, for they ran:

"Oh, blame me not for weepin',
Oh, blame me not, I say!
For I have a' angel mother,
Ten thousand miles away!"

Having got to the end of a verse, One-Eye sat up, smiled feebly, darted
a bashful glance at Cis, and went on with his questions. "What was Uncle
Albert's name?" he wanted to know.

But as Johnnie could not remember Aunt Sophie's name, naturally enough
he could not remember his Uncle Albert's, both names being one and the
same. His Uncle was a figure that this small nephew had greatly
admired--straight, be-capped like a soldier, and soldierly, too, in his
smart, dark livery.

"They's somethin' mysterious about the hull proposition!" pronounced
One-Eye.

That night when One-Eye was about to leave, he asked Cis what he might
buy her for Christmas. Cis was shy about answering, and declared that he
need not buy her anything: he had bought her so much candy, and that was
enough--more than enough. But One-Eye pressed the qu