else to say.
There's a young boy as we're goin' to see to-day. 'Is name is Ronald;
he's a special friend o' mine. I ha' had that boy a-wisiting o' me afore
now, but he were took bad with a sort of fever. My word! din't I nurse
him--the best o' good things didn't I give 'im! But his narves went
wrong, and I sent him into the country for change of hair. He's all
right now. He's a very purty boy, same as you're a purty gel, and I'm
goin' to bring him back to be a companion for yer."

"Oh ma'am!"

"Yus," said Mrs. Warren. "Yer'll like that, won't yer?"

"Oh yus, ma'am."

"Wull, now--we'll be calling at the cottage in a few minutes, and wot I
want yer to do is to have a talk with that yer boy. Ye're to tell him as
I'm wonnerful good; ye're to tell him the sort o' things I does for yer.
The poor boy--he got a notion in his head w'en he had the fever--that
I--I--Mammy Warren--wor cruel to him. You tell him as there ain't a word
o' truth in it, for a kinder or more motherly body never lived. Ef yer
don't tell him that, I'll soon find out; an' there's the room without
winders an' without light real 'andy. Now--do yer promise?"

These words were accompanied by a violent shake.

"Do yer promise?"

"Yus, I promise," said Connie, turning white.

Mrs. Warren had an extraordinary capacity for changing her voice and
manner, even the expression of her face. While she had been extracting
two promises from poor Connie, she looked like the most awful, wicked
old woman that the worst parts of London could produce; but when on two
points Connie had faithfully promised to yield to her wishes, she
immediately altered her tactics, and became as genial and affectionate
and pleasant as she had been the reverse a few minutes back.

"I believes yer," she said, "and you're a real nice child, and there
won't be any one in the 'ole of Lunnun 'appier than you as long as yer
take the part of poor old Mammy Warren. Now then, yere's the cottage,
and soon we'll see the little man. He'll be a nice companion for yer,
Connie, and yer'll like that, won't you?"

"Oh yes, ma'am," said Connie.

She was not a London child for nothing. She had known a good deal of its
ups and downs, although nothing quite so terrible as her present
position had ever entered into her mind. But she saw clearly enough that
the only chance of deliverance for her, and perhaps for the poor little
boy, was to carry out Mammy Warren's injunctions and to keep her promise
to t