“Anywhere! I’m a-going to seek my niece through the wureld. I’m a-going to find my poor niece in her shame, and bring her back. No one stop me! I tell you I’m a-going to seek my niece!”

“No, no!” cried Mrs. Gummidge, coming between them, in a fit of crying. “No, no, Dan’l, not as you are now. Seek her in a little while, my lone lorn Dan’l, and that’ll be but right! but not as you are now. Sit ye down, and give me your forgiveness for having ever been a worrit to you, Dan’l⁠—what have my contraries ever been to this!⁠—and let us speak a word about them times when she was first an orphan, and when Ham was too, and when I was a poor widder woman, and you took me in. It’ll soften your poor heart, Dan’l,” laying her head upon his shoulder, “and you’ll bear your sorrow better; for you know the promise, Dan’l, ‘As you have done it unto one of the least of these, you have done it unto me’⁠—and that can never fail under this roof, that’s been our shelter for so many, many year!”