r, quitted Mrs Brisbane, ran towards her
with a delighted scream, and clasping her hand in both of hers,
proclaimed her the sister of "my boy!"

Hetty's was not the nature to refuse such affection. Though among the
poorest of the poor, and clothed in the shabbiest and most patchy of
garments, (which in her case, however, were neat, clean and well
mended), she was rich in a loving disposition; so that, forgetting
herself and the presence of others, she stooped and folded the little
girl in her arms. And, when the soft brown hair and pale pretty face of
Poverty were thus seen as it were co-mingling with the golden locks and
rosy cheeks of Wealth, even Sir Richard was forced to admit to himself
that it was not after all a very outrageous piece of impropriety!

"Oh! I'm _so_ glad to hear that he's much better, and been out too! I
would have come to see him again long long ago, but p--"

She checked herself, for Mrs Screwbury had carefully explained to her
that no good girl ever said anything against her parents; and little Di
had swallowed the lesson, for, when not led by passion, she was
extremely teachable.

"And oh!" she continued, opening her great blue lakelets to their widest
state of solemnity, "you haven't the smallest bit of notion how I have
dreamt about my boy--and my policeman too! I never can get over the
feeling that they might both have been killed, and if they had, you
know, it would have been me that did it; only think! I would have--
been--a murderer! P'raps they'd have hanged me!"

"But they weren't killed, dear," said Hetty, unable to restrain a smile
at the awful solemnity of the child, and the terrible fate referred to.

"No--I'm _so_ glad, but I can't get over it," continued Di, while those
near to her stood quietly by unable to avoid overhearing, even if they
had wished to do so. "And they do such strange things in my dreams,"
continued Di, "you can't think. Only last night I was in our
basket-cart--the dream-one, you know, not the real one--and the
dream-pony ran away again, and gave my boy such a dreadful knock that he
fell flat down on his back, tumbled over two or three times, and rose
up--a policeman! Not _my_ policeman, you know, but quite another one
that I had never seen before! But the very oddest thing of all was that
it made me so angry that I jumped with all my might on to his breast,
and when I got there it wasn't the policeman but the pony! and it was
dead--quite dead,