Page:Saxe Holm's Stories, Series Two.djvu/160

150 mean," he added shamefacedly, "I know they did n't live anywhere near here. They 're English. You might have known it by the sweet tones of her poor little feeble voice. They have only just come from the ship; she told me so; and her mother is dead; she told me that too."

We were interrupted by the appearance of the landlord, who came hurrying out of the office, his face red with excitement, which was part horror and part a pleasurable sense of importance in having his house the scene of the most startling event which had happened in the village for a half century.

"Oh!" he said, "I was jest a lookin' for you; we thought mebbe ye knowed suthin' about the miserable critter, as ye come in the stage with him."

"All I know," said Jim, "I know from the little girl. The man was nearly dead drunk when they got into the stage. They are English, and have only just come to this country. She has no brothers and sisters, and her mother is dead. He was a cruel, inhuman brute, and it is a mercy he is dead. And I am going to take the little girl. I am an orphan myself, but I have friends who will care for her."

The landlord s light-blue eyes opened wider and wider at each word of Jim's last sentences. A boy, eighteen, who proposed to adopt a little girl of eleven, had never before crossed Caleb Bunker's path.