saying I saw in a book the other day, 'A mother's geese are all swans.'"
"I am sure," Mrs. Holl said, in an aggrieved voice, "you ain't no goose, Harry, and if any one else said so I should give them a bit of my mind sharp enough."
Harry did not attempt to argue with her, but with a little laugh turned to his books again, and was soon deep in the mysteries of Cæsar.
The next day a carrier's cart stopped before Mrs. Holl's house, to the great amazement of the neighbourhood – for such an occurrence had not been known in the memory of the oldest inhabitant in the street, and quite a crowd of children collected to witness the delivery of a square heavy box of considerable weight at the door.
Harry was almost beside himself with delight as he took out the treasures it contained; and as fully half were story-books, his delight was shared by the rest of the young Holls. It was evening when the cart arrived, and John was just enjoying his first pipe, and he once more uttered the sentiment he had expressed so often during the last four days, "I should like to shake that young chap by the hand."
CHAPTER IV.
AN ADOPTED CHILD
A FEW days after school had commenced Frank Norris called in again at the Holls'. It was a bright day, and Harry had gone out in his box, and Mrs. Holl was alone.
"Harry will be sorry he is out, sir," was her first greeting to Frank; "he has been looking forward to your coming again. You don't know, sir, how much good you have done him. The boy has generally wonderful good spirits, considering his condition; still, though he don't say nought, I can see sometimes that he isn't never quite happy except when he is working away with his books or playing on that fiddle of his.
"Evan has been and spent all the money as was given him that day at the Serpentine in buying a new fiddle for him. I don't see much in the thing myself, and it seems to me they must have cheated Evan altogether, for it ain't a new un, but an old, brown, dirty-looking thing, as looks as if it had been made nigh fifty years; and they goes and charges him thirty-eight shillings for it, and pretended to make a favour of it, while John only paid seven and sixpence for the one he had before, which was a beautiful new shiny one.
"However, Harry seems delighted with it, and says it's beautiful soft, and mellow. But what he means I don't know, though I do allow it ain't so squeaky as the other; and sometimes when Harry is playing soft on it, it does sound beautiful. Still, thirty-eight shillings is a big price for an old thing like that."
"Old fiddles are always worth more than new ones, Mrs. Holl. Do you know there are some fiddles two or three hundred years old which could not be bought for less than three or four hundred pounds?"
"My gracious!" Mrs. Holl exclaimed, "three or four hundred pounds for such a thing as a fiddle. I calls it downright wicked."
"He is a wonderful boy that son of yours, Mrs. Holl," Frank said, changing the subject; "a regular genius I should call him. What a pity it is that he is a cripple!"
"Ay, that it is," Mrs. Holl agreed, "and he is a wonderful chap, is Harry. But he ain't no son of mine, Mr. Norris, though he don't know it himself, and I shouldn't like him to be told."
"Then what relation is he, Mrs. Holl, if it is not an impertinent question?"
"He ain't no sort of relation at all, sir," the woman answered.
"Then how came you to bring him up, Mrs. Holl?" Frank asked in surprise.
"Well, sir, it was a very simple matter. But if so be as you care to hear it, I will tell you just how it happened." And, leaning against the mantelpiece, with the red light of the fire thrown up into her face, Mrs. Holl went on very slowly, and speaking as though she almost saw what she was relating.
"Well, sir, it were an evening in April – a cold bitter day. I was sitting here between light and dark, drinking my tea with John, who was just come home from work – John is my husband, you see, sir – when we heard a noise outside in the street. We went out to see what was the matter, and we found a poor young creature, with a baby in her arms, had fallen down in a faint like.
"She was a pretty young thing, sir; and though her dress was poor and torn, she looked as if she had not been always so. Some one says, 'Take them to the workhouse.' 'No!' says I – for my heart yearned towards the poor young thing – 'bring her in here; mayn't we, John?' says I. Well, sir, John did not say nothing, but he took the baby out of her arms and gave it to me, and then he upped and took the poor young creature – she were no great weight, sir – and carried her into the house, and laid her on the bed, as it might be by the window there.
"Well, sir, that bed she never left; she came round a little, and lived some days, but her mind were never rightly itself again. She would lay there, with her baby beside her, and sing songs to herself; I don't know what about, for it were some foreign language. She 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. I don't rightly know how it happened; but never shall I forget when they brought him in, and said that a cart had run over him. John, he was in – which was lucky, for I think I lost my head like, and went clean out of my mind for a bit, for I loved him just like my own. They did not think he would have lived at first, for the cart had gone over the lower part of his body and broke one of his thigh-bones, and the other leg up high. It was a light cart I have heard tell, or it must have killed him.
"He were in bed for months, and, if you will believe me, if ever there was a patient little angel on earth, it was surely Harry. He never complained, and
