dead nephew's pretty garments and her dead nephew's
aristocratic name?

It was all very puzzling, and Towsley felt unequal to solving the
riddle, although it was he who always was first among the fellows to
find the answers to the printed riddles on the children's page of the
weekly _Express_. He shut his eyes a moment, to see things a little
better, and after the ceiling and the pansy were thus put out of sight
he did begin to understand quite clearly.

Tears? He hated them. There should never any be shed for him, that he
could prevent. On that point he made up his mind, and he shut his lids
down tighter, so that nothing should alter his sudden resolution.

What was that sound?

Towsley's eyes opened with a snap. He was sure that they had not been
closed a second, but the nurse laughed when he so declared; he always
afterward believed that some sort of magic had been used to change
things about in that little hospital bedroom.

For there on the tiny dresser was lightly tossed a rich fur robe that
looked as if it had just slipped off somebody's slender shoulders. It
was an old-fashioned robe, Towsley saw that, and the bonnet which had
fallen to the floor beside it was quite out of style, also.

"Regular old timer, ain't it! And she's an old timer, too, but--the
tears! Shucks! He wished nobody would ever cry. He hated tears!" again
thought Towsley. And then he stole his hand around the neck of the
little old lady who was kneeling beside his cot, and remarked,
generously:

"Oh! I say, Miss Lucy, please don't. It's all right. I didn't behave
very--very gentlemanly, I guess, but if you like I'm willing to try
it over again. I'll be your little boy if you want me, and if I have
to be 'Lionel,' just make it Towsley, too, can't you?"

"Oh! you darling! I didn't know that it could be possible; that in so
short a time a stranger child could creep so closely into my
affection. I've been hearing such a lot about you, from Molly, you
know. Oh! my dear, I am so thankful that you did not perish. So
thankful that my eyes have been opened to see how lonely and selfish a
life I've led. Just to think, to think, that I have at last a dear
little human boy to love and to love me! All day I've thought about
you and seemed to feel that it was Lionel, our own Lionel, who had
wandered out into the storm to suffer so; and--and----"

This was too much for the gamin. He was still that. He had not yet
been transformed into the gentleman