Page:Her Benny - Silas K Hocking (Warne, 1890).djvu/89

Rh to the right. It was very evident they knew the streets well, for they wound in and out, now right, now left, without the least hesitation.

At length they reached a street where all was darkness, save where here and there the flickering jays of a candle struggled through the dirt-begrimed window. This was Bowker's Row, and Benny and his sister paused for awhile before venturing into the darkness.

For several days the little hearts had been aching with curiosity to visit once more their old home. They had no wish to be seen, and as for living again in Addler's Hall, that was altogether out of the question. Still, they were filled with a curiosity that they could not resist to peep at the old spot once more, and ascertain, if possible, how far their father and stepmother were pleased or otherwise with their disappearance. They had talked the matter over for several nights as they lay in each other's arms in the warm comer under Betty Barker's stairs. They admitted that there were difficulties, perhaps danger, in paying such a visit; but at length curiosity became too strong for them, and they resolved to risk it. With Nelly, too, there was something more than curiosity. Notwithstanding his drunken habits and his cruelty to Benny, she loved her father, for there had been times when he had made much of her, and called her "his little Nell." Perhaps she did not love her father very deeply. In comparison with "her Benny," he occupied indeed a very third-rate