Glad to find a listener in a "gintleman the likes of him," Betty had talked away to the gentlemen, so taken up with her story, that she paid little heed to the business of her stall. She made wrong change more than once, gave quarts instead of pints, oranges in place of apples, and peanuts for sugar-plums, and provoked some impatient customers not a little; while one wicked boy, seeing her attention was taken up with something else, ran off without paying for the pop-corn he asked for, and was not called back.
But Betty lost nothing by the time and thought she had given to the gentleman, or the interest she had shown in her young charge, as she found when she looked at the number upon the note he slipped into her hand when he left her: a note which the warm-hearted Irishwoman laid by "to buy that new gown and pair of shoes Margaret needed so bad."
"BETTY," said General Forster, stopping the next morning at the fruit-woman's stall, "could you make up your mind to give up that little girl if you were sure it was for her good?"
Betty sighed and shook her head mournfully as she answered,--
"I've always looked to give her up, sir, if them Saacyfuts, or whatever their name'll be, turned up, and if it was for her good, sorra a word would they hear out of me, though I won't say but it would go hard with me and Jack. But ye'll not be tellin' me ye've been findin' her friends since last night, sir?"
"Not the people she belongs to, certainly, Betty; but I have found those who will be friends to her, and provide for her, if you will consent. She should go to school and be well taught: do you not think so?"
"Indade, an' there's none knows that better nor meself, sir. An' is it yerself that's the friend ye're spakin' of?" and Betty gave a searching look into the gentleman's face.
He smiled. "Yes," he said: "I would like to put her to school and take care of her. She seems a sweet child, and a good one. And you see, Betty, I have it in my power to do more to find her friends than you are able to do, and we may trace them yet. If we never find them, I will promise to provide for her as long as it may be necessary. Are you willing?"
Betty again stared into the face of her questioner as if she would look him through.