were very gentle and
quiet like, but I don't think she ever knew where she was, or anything
about it. She were very fond of baby, and would take it in her arms, and
hush it, and talk to it. She faded and faded away, and the doctor said
nothing could be done for her; it made my heart ache, sir, and if you
will believe me, I would go upstairs and cry by the hour.

"The thought of the little baby troubled me too. I had lost my first
little one, sir, and I could not a-bear the thought of the little thing
going to the workhouse. So one day I says to John, 'John, when that
poor mother dies, for God's sake don't 'ee send the little baby to the
workhouse; He has taken away our own little one, and may be He has sent
this one for us to love in his place. Let us take him as our own.' John,
he did not say nothing, but he up and gived me a great kiss, and said,
'Sairey, you're a good woman!' which of course, sir," Mrs. Holl put in
apologetically, "is neither here nor there, for any mother would have
done the same; but it's John's way when he's pleased. That very same
night the baby's mother died."

Standing with her rough honest face lit up by the bright fire-glow she
related it, simply, and as a matter of course, all unconscious of the
good part she had taken in it, assuming no credit to herself, or seeing
that she deserved any.

When she had finished there was a little silence. Frank passed his hand
furtively across his eyes, and then shook Mrs. Holl warmly by the hand,
saying, "Your husband was right, Mrs. Holl, you are a good woman."

Mrs. Holl looked completely amazed, and stammered out, "Lor' bless you,
sir! there wasn't anything out of the way in what I did, and there's
scores and scores would do the like. Having just lost my own little one,
my heart went out to the poor little thing, and it seemed sent natural
like, to fill up the place of the little angel who was gone from us.
Bless your heart, sir, there weren't nothing out of the way in that,
nothing at all, and we have never had cause to regret it. The boy's a
good boy, and a clever boy, and he is a comfort and a help to us; a
better boy never lived. But we have always grieved sorely over the
accident."

"Then he was not originally lame, Mrs. Holl?" Frank asked.

"Dear me! no, sir, not till he were six years old. It happened this way.
I was laid up at the time--I was just confined of Mary, she is my eldest
girl--and somehow Harry he went out in the street playing.