The ugly gingham uniform she wore told _that_ story only too well. Dorothy became grave at once.
“You come from some orphan asylum, my dear.”
“From the Findling,” said the little girl, pursing up her lips and nodding.
“Yes’m. But I wasn’t really a ‘findling.’ I didn’t come there like the babies do. _I_ was two an’ a ha’f years old when they took me in. That ain’t no baby; is it?”
“Two and a half? Why, that’s a _big_ girl,” agreed Dorothy.
“’Course it is. But my papa had been dead a long time; and my mamma, too. And then my auntie died, so I had to go to the Findling.”
“And wasn’t there anybody else to look out for you?” asked the interested Dorothy.
“Tom Moran. He’s my brother. I don’t suppose _you_ know him; do you?”
“I don’t think I do,” said Dorothy, shaking her head.
“Oh, you’d remember him--of course,” confided Celia, impressively. “For he is so big, and strong, and--and red-headed. Yes. He’s got awful red hair. And he builds bridges, and things. Oh, I can remember him--_just as easy_! So I must have been a big girl when they brought me to the Findling.”
“And you haven’t seen your brother since?”
“No’m. And he’d gone away before auntie died. That’s why he doesn’t come for me, I s’pose. So the matron says. He don’t know where I is,” she added, with a little sigh.
“And now Mrs. Hogan’s got me. She’s tooked me to bring up. And she says she’s going to bring me up right strict,” added the child, pursing her lips and shaking her head in her queer, old-fashioned way. “She spects it’s goin’ to be jes’ a _job_ to do it!”
Dorothy Dale was delighted with the little one; but she pitied her so, too! Covertly the schoolgirl wiped her eyes, while the child prattled on.
“Sometime I know Tom Moran will come for me. Oh, yes! He mus’ be very smart, for he builds bridges and things. My auntie what died told the Findling Asylum matron so. But somehow the letters the matron wrote to Tom Moran never bringed him back.
“Of course, he didn’t get ’em. If he had, he’d come for me. And he’ll come for me anyway, and find me--even if Mrs. Ann Hogan has got me.
“You see, all us Morans is jes’ as _smart_! Somebody said I was jes’ the cutest little thing they ever see,” and Celia looked up again, slily, at her new friend.