The boy asked, rubbing his nose in a manner that half expressed vexation at hearing so much, and half curiosity to hear more: “How came you to make that out? What a girl you are!”

“The child’s father is employed by the house that employs me; that’s how I came to know it, Charley. The father is like his own father, a weak wretched trembling creature, falling to pieces, never sober. But a good workman too, at the work he does. The mother is dead. This poor ailing little creature has come to be what she is, surrounded by drunken people from her cradle⁠—if she ever had one, Charley.”

“I don’t see what you have to do with her, for all that,” said the boy.

“Don’t you, Charley?”

The boy looked doggedly at the river. They were at Millbank, and the river rolled on their left. His sister gently touched him on the shoulder, and pointed to it.