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 ill 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.

'You think,' said the boy, 'that it's very small and inconvenient. So
it is, but it's very clean. Perhaps you think it would be noisy, but
there's not a quieter court than ours in all the town. Don't be afraid
of the children; the baby hardly ever cries, and the other one is very
good--besides, I'd mind 'em. They wouldn't vex you much, I'm sure. Do
try,