Page:Arthur Stringer-The Loom of Destiny.djvu/193

The Heart's Desire was passed on to an equally humble home on Sullivan Street, and was accordingly thereafter known as Teddie Sullivan.

But in his new home the sturdy Teddie's appetite developed the most unexpected proportions, and he was quickly shuffled out into the wide world, where he fell upon evil days and would surely have died, had not a kindly-eyed Scotch widow in Perkins Place taken him in. His new foster-mother, who was laundress and shirt-maker and housekeeper by turns, had seen better days. But as her pursuits were now often those of she found the hungry-eyed Teddie to be a potent accession, and the gratuities he called forth were numerous. As Mar'gut Macdougall's love for Glenlevit rye, however, was even stronger than her love for the child, there were many days, indeed, when Master Teddie went without his dinner.

But here it was that Teddie emerged from babyhood and learned to say his first words with a strange little touch of the Highland burr to them. In time, too, he grew big enough to explore the boundless vistas 181