"Suppose, after I'm dead and gone,
Harriet should want help. She won't make many friends, I fear, and
she'll have bad health. Suppose she was in want of any kind,--
you'd stand by her, Julian, wouldn't you? You'd be a friend to her,
--always?"
"Indeed I would, uncle!" exclaimed the boy stoutly.
"You promise me that, Julian, this Christmas night?--you promise
it?"
"Yes, I promise, uncle. You've always been kind and good to me, and
see if I'm not the same to Harriet."
His voice trembled with generous emotion.
"No, I sha'n't see it, my boy," said Smales, shaking his head
drearily; "but the promise will be a comfort to me at the end, a
comfort to me. You're a good lad, Julian!"
Silence came upon them again.
In the same district, in one of a row of semi-detached houses
standing in gardens, lived Ida's little friend, Maud Enderby, with
her aunt, Miss Bygrave, a lady of forty-two or forty-three. The
rooms were small and dark; the furniture sparse, old-fashioned, and
much worn; there were no ornaments in any of the rooms, with the
exception of a few pictures representing the saddest incidents in
the life of Christ. On entering the front door you were oppressed by
the chill, damp atmosphere, and by a certain unnatural stillness.
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