As old Oliver was stooping over his desk on the counter, and bringing his dim eyes as close as he could to the letter he was writing, his shop-door was darkened by the unexpected entrance of his sister Charlotte herself. She was dressed with her usual extreme neatness, bordering upon gentility, and she carried upon her arm a small fancy reticule, which contained some fresh eggs, and a few russet apples, brought up expressly from the country. Oliver welcomed her with more than ordinary pleasure, and led her at once into his room behind. Charlotte's quick eyes detected in an instant the traces of a child's dwelling there; and before Oliver could utter a word, she picked up a little frock, and was holding it out at arm's length, with an air of utter surprise and misgiving.
"Brother James!" she exclaimed, and her questioning voice, with its tone of amazement, rang very clearly into his ears.
"It's my little Dolly's," he answered, in haste; "poor Susan's little girl, who's gone out with her husband, young Raleigh, to India, because he's 'listed, and left her little girl with me, her grandfather. She came on the very last day you were here."
"Well, to be sure!" cried his sister, sinking down on a chair, but still keeping the torn little frock in her hand.
"I've had two letters from poor Susan," he continued, in a tremulous voice, "and I'll read them to you. The child's such a precious treasure to me, Charlotte—such a little love, a hundred times better than any gold; and now you're come to mend up her clothes a bit, and see what she wants for me, there's nothing else that I desire. I was writing about her to you when you came in."
"I thought you'd gone and picked up a lost child out of the streets," said Charlotte, with a sigh of relief.
"No, no; she's my own," he answered. "You hearken while I read poor Susan's letters, and then you'll understand all about it. I couldn't give her up for a hundred gold guineas—not for a deal more than that."
He knew Susan's letters off by heart, and did not need his spectacles, nor a good light to read them by. Charlotte listened with emphatic nods, and many exclamations of astonishment.
"That's very pretty of Susan," she remarked, "saying as Aunt Charlotte 'll do her sewing, and see to her manners. Ay, that I will! for who should know manners better than me, who used to work for the Staniers, and dine at the housekeeper's table, with the butler and all the head servants? to be sure I'll take care that she does not grow up ungenteel. Where is the dear child, brother James?"
"She's gone out for a walk this fine morning," he answered.
"Not alone?" cried Charlotte. "Who's gone out with her? A child under five years old could never go out all alone in London: at least I should think not. She might get run over and killed a score of times."
"Oh! there's a person with her I've every confidence in," replied Oliver.
"What sort of person; man or woman; male or female?" inquired Charlotte.
"A boy," he answered, in some confusion.
"A boy!" repeated his sister, as if he had said a monster. "What boy?"
"His name's Tony," he replied.
"But where does he come from? Is he respectable?" she pursued, fixing him with her glittering eyes in a manner which did not tend to restore his composure.
"I don't know, sister," he said in a feeble tone.
"Don't know, brother James!" she exclaimed. "Don't you know where he lives?"
"He lives here," stammered old Oliver; "at least he sleeps here under the counter; but he finds his own food abo............