‘I don’t know,’ replied Kit. ‘I’m sure I’ve never deserved it from him, no, nor from you. I can say that with a true and honest heart any way. And then to be driven from the door, when I only came to ask how old master was — !’

‘They never told me that,’ said the child. ‘I didn’t know it indeed. I wouldn’t have had them do it for the world.’

‘Thank’ee, Miss,’ returned Kit, ‘it’s comfortable to hear you say that. I said I never would believe that it was your doing.’

‘That was right!’ said the child eagerly.

‘Miss Nell,’ cried the boy, coming under the window and speaking in a lower tone, ‘there are new masters downstairs. It’s a change for you.’

‘It is indeed,’ replied the child.

‘And so it will be for him when he gets better,’ said the boy, pointing towards the sick room.

‘ — If he ever does,’ added the child, unable to restrain her tears.

‘Oh, he’ll do that, he’ll do that,’ said Kit. ‘I’m sure he will. You mustn’t be cast down, Miss Nell. Now don’t be, pray.’

These words of encouragement and consolation were few and roughly said, but they affected the child and made her for the moment weep the more.

‘He’ll be sure to get better now,’ said the boy anxiously, ‘if you don’t give way to low spirits and turn in yourself, which would make him worse and throw him back just as he was recovering. When he does, say a good word — say a kind word for me, Miss Nell.’

‘They tell me I must not even mention your name to him for a long, long time,’ rejoined the child, ‘I dare not; and even if I might, what good would a kind word do you, Kit? We shall be very poor. We shall scarcely have bread to eat.’

‘It’s not that I may be taken back,’ said the boy, ‘that I ask the favour of you. It isn’t for the sake of food and wages that I’ve been waiting about so long in hopes to see you. Don’t think that I’d come in a time of trouble to talk of such things as them.’

The child looked gratefully and kindly at him, but waited that he might speak again.

‘No, it’s not that,’ said Kit hesitating, ‘it’s something very different from that. I haven’t got much sense, I know, but if he could be brought to believe that I’d been a faithful servant to him, doing the best I could, and never meaning harm, perhaps he mightn’t — ’

Here Kit faltered so long that the child entreated him to speak out, and quickly, for it was very late, and time to shut the window.

‘Perhaps he mightn’t think it over venturesome of me to say — well then, to say this,’ — cried Kit with sudden boldness. ‘This home is gone from you and him. Mother and I have got a poor one, but that’s better than this with all these people here; and why not come there, till he’s had time to look about and find a better!’

The child did not speak. Kit, in the relief of having made his proposition, found his tongue loosened, and spoke out in its favour with his utmost eloquence.