"Let me see Mr. Boyd," she said. "Wait till I see him."
The bargain in the shop was now completed, and the captain and mate were departing with their chronometer, when Uncle Bobo sang out to Patience--
"Glad to see you; the little one aloft is just hungry for a sight of you. Bet isn't come yet. She's to help her old grannie before she starts."
A bevy of little girls on their way to school now came up with flowers, and some ripe plums in a basket.
"Please will you give these to little Miss Joy?" the eldest of the four said, "with our love. Please, Mr. Boyd, how is she? is she better?"
"So they say, my dear; so they say. I wish I could say so too. But--well--never mind. Here, Mrs. Patience, take 'em aloft to the child. And now, ma'am, what can I show you?" Mr. Boyd said, turning to the lady.
"The child--you call--little Miss Joy," was the reply, in faint tones. "Mr. Boyd, you don't know me, and Mrs. Harrison does not know me. I was once Maggie Skinner, and Little Joy is my child!"
Uncle Bobo looked with a keen glance from under his bushy grey eyebrows into the lady's face.
"Yes, I have had a great deal of trouble; but it is over now."
"Sit down; sit down," Uncle Bobo said, pushing a high round stool with a slippery leather top, the only seat for which the shop could afford room. "Sit ye down; but surely you look too old to be Maggie Skinner!"
"I have had many troubles. Oh! Mr. Boyd, can you forgive me? When my darling child was a baby, I wanted bread. My husband died just when she was eighteen months old; I had not a shilling in the world; there was only the workhouse before me, and I could not--no, I could not take my precious child there. So I walked here from Ipswich. I remembered you had a kind heart--so I laid her here on your door-step and stood watching till you came and took her up, and I knew you would be good to her; but I dared not face my mother. I wandered alone all that night; and early in the morning, before any one was stirring, I came to look up at this house. As I stood listening, I heard my baby's little cough. Some one was crooning over her and playing with her."
"That was Susan. Hi, Sue! come this way," exclaimed Mr. Boyd.
Susan came blundering down the stairs, asking--