Blake."
"May be so," she said, as if quite unconvinced.
I turned the conversation rather abruptly:--
"Will ten dollars be too much to entrust Mrs. Larkum with at once?"
"Dear heart, you might give her fifty, if you had it. She'd be jest as
saving of it as--well as I'd be myself, and I call myself next door to
stingy."
"I am so glad; one likes to know the most will be made of what they
give."
"If you don't mind, I'll put on my shawl and go with you."
"I was going to ask you to do so."
"I'll jest set on the pot for Dan'el's dinner first. Twelve o'clock soon
comes these short days." Mrs. Blake threw a faded woolen shawl over her
head, and taking a short path across the field we started for Mrs.
Larkum's, Tiger limping after us.
I thought Mrs. Blake's snug kitchen quite a nest of comfort after I had
taken a survey of the Larkum's abode.
One roughly plastered room with two little closets at one side for
bedrooms had to serve for home for five souls.
I felt a curious, smothered sensation at first, as I looked on the
desolate surroundings--the pale, sad-faced mother, the blind grandfather,
and ragged children. A dull fire was smouldering in the cooking stove,
and beside it sat the grandfather, the baby on his knee, vainly trying to
extract consolation from its own puny fist. As I looked at him closely I
saw that Mr. Bowen had an unusually fine face--not old looking, but
strangely subdued, and chastened. I fancied from his countenance, at once
serene and noble, that he had beautiful thoughts there in the darkness
and poverty of his surroundings.
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