Madge gave some low confused answer, which Alie could not at first understand; she made out from the child at last that the gipsy had pitched her tent somewhere near, and that she could not tell how long she would stay.
“Do you ever go to school, little Madge?”
Madge either did not comprehend the meaning of the question, or her eyes were wandering to Alie’s white kitten, and she paid no attention to what was said. Alie marked the curious glance, and setting down her cake, went after her shy favourite, drew it from under the table where it had crouched, and carried it to the little girl at the door.
Alie’s cake was nowhere to be seen, and the gipsy child was turning away!
“My cake!” exclaimed Alie. The girl started, and the piece of cake fell from her hand to the ground!
Alie, astonished as well as distressed, stood looking for a moment at the little culprit, then said in a voice of pity, “Pick it up, little Madge; you may eat it. I daresay that you are more hungry than I. But, oh!” she continued, as the child obeyed with an awkward air and a look of shame, “did you not know that it was very, very naughty to steal it? Did your mother never teach you that it is wrong to take what is not your own?”
A strange expression stole over the face of the wretched girl, which, coupled with the gipsy woman’s appearance and what Alie had heard of the character of some of the race, made her suspect that Madge would derive little benefit from her parent’s instructions.
“Do you not know that God sees you?” pursued the young questioner.
“I know nothing about Him!” muttered the child.
“Not know about God!—never pray to Him!” exclaimed Alie.
But here the conversation was suddenly broken off by the gipsy woman calling to the child. Madge looked frightened, like one who had often found a word to be followed by a blow, and obeyed the call, though reluctantly, casting a parting look of regret, not at Alie, but at her pretty white kitten, and in a few minutes more both the gipsy and child had disappeared down a lane.
“Oh, poor, wretched little Madge!” thought Alie; “no wonder that she took the cake—no wonder if she grow up miserable and wicked! She does not know about God—she does not know that He made her—that He watches over her—that He hates sin, and will punish it! What will become of her in this world? what will become of her in the next?”