Frank Linden had listened with an interest which had almost awakened a desire in him to take part in the ball. He half promised to appear, took the address of a glove-shop and sat for a couple of hours in lively conversation. After the lonely weeks he had been spending it interested him more than he was willing to confess.
"I am really stooping to gossip," he said, amused at himself. When he went out into the street, darkness had already come down on the short November day, the gas-lamps were reflected back from the pools in the street, the shop-windows were brilliantly lighted, and five long strokes sounded from the tower of St. Benedict's.
He went round the corner of the hotel into the next street, and walked slowly along on the narrow sidewalk, looking at the shops which were all adorned with everything gay and brilliant for the approaching Christmas holidays.
"Good-evening!" said suddenly a timid voice behind him. He turned round. For a moment he could not remember the woman who stood timidly before him, with a yoke on her shoulder from which hung two shining pails. Then he recognized her--it was Johanna.
"I only wanted to thank you so very much," she began, "the sexton brought me the present for the baby."
"And is my little godchild well?" he asked, walking beside the woman and suddenly resolving to learn something about "her" at any price.
"Oh, thank you, Mr. Linden; it is but a weakly thing--trouble hasn't been good for him. But if the gentleman would like to see him--it isn't so very far and I'm going straight home now."
"Of course I should," he said, and learned as he went along, that she carried milk twice a day for a farmer's wife.
"Does the young lady come to see her godson sometimes?"
"Ay, to be sure!" replied the woman. "She comes and the baby hasn't a frock or a petticoat that she hasn't given him. She is so good, Miss Gertrude. We were confirmed together," she added, with pride.
They had still some distance to go, through narrow streets and alleys, before the woman announced that they had reached her house. "There is a light inside--perhaps it is mother, the child waked up I suppose. My mother lives up stairs," she explained, "my father is a shoemaker."
The window was so low that a child might have looked in easily, so he could overlook the whole room without difficulty.