Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 2).djvu/11

10 mystery into Mrs. Clarke's barely-furnished little parlour.

Mrs. Clarke herself had gone out to do some marketing. She had been a long time gone, and in their secret hearts the children hoped it would be a long while yet before she returned. Poor

Mrs. Clarke, soft-hearted as a baby, but careful and troubled about many things, was often rather cross and disagreeable. Since Mr. Clarke's death four years ago she had been a lodging-house keeper, and lodging-house keeping had spoiled her temper, and brought anxious puckers and wrinkles to her once smooth forehead. But the fact that she had adopted little orphaned Ralphie was proof enough of her being at heart a thoroughly kind and womanly woman.

This was the sad history, so far as Mrs. Clarke knew it, of Ralphie's parentage. Seven years ago, when Mr. Clarke was alive and when Mrs. Clarke only let out two top rooms of her house, there came one day a gentleman seeking lodgings for himself, his wife, and baby. Mrs. Clarke knew he was a gentleman, although he was shabbily dressed, and could not afford to pay much for the rooms. He was an artist, he said, and his face was so sad, gentle, and winning that Mrs. Clarke needed no other recommendation, and even let him have the rooms for much less than she had originally asked. No one knew better than Mrs. Clarke the heart-rending struggles with ill-fortune and poverty her lodgers went through, and no one was sadder than Mrs. Clarke when the young artist laid down his brush for the last time, and took to his bed and died. And when, not many months later, the young artist's girl-wife, broken-hearted, followed her husband into the unseen world, it was Mrs. Clarke who took compassion on the sickly, wailing baby boy, and brought him up side by side with her own little daughter Nellie.

As the firelight shone on the two little faces it was easy to see that the children were not brother and sister. Ralphie's face was delicately pretty, with white arched brow and sensitive blue eyes; Nellie's was plain, plump, and happy-looking. They had been sitting silent for a long time. Nellie was half asleep; her dark head with the straight hair cut short all round it lying against Ralphie's curls of silky gold. Ralphie's dreaming, dilating eyes were fixed upon the clear flaming fire.

"Nellie!" said Ralphie suddenly, "I should think that lady in the picture woke up!"

"What lady, Ralphie?" said Nellie, opening wide her sleepy brown eyes.

"The lady that's asleep, and that the angel boys are flying down to with a cross," said Ralphie.

"That picture in the big gallery that you're so fond of?" said Nellie, suddenly comprehending.

"Yes," answered Ralphie, and went on dreamily: "P'raps these angels are her own little boys that died one day and went to heaven. And one day they wanted to go back to see their mother. So Jesus let them fly down on His cross. But they found their mother fast asleep, she was so tired out with crying because her little boys had died. That's what the picture shows you. I 'spect she woke up soon, and saw her little boys that had been turned into angels. The picture doesn't show you that, but I should think Jesus didn't let them go back to heaven without letting their mother wake up and see them."