casino in London just as readily: her sole thought was to keep Charley out of prison. Her father had been in prison once; to keep her mother’s child out of prison was the grand object of her life.
“Well,” he resumed, with some hesitation, for he had arrived at the resolution through difficulties, whose fogs yet lingered about him, “if he will be an honest, careful boy, I will take him myself.”
“Charley! Charley!” cried Sara, utterly neglectful of the source of the benefaction; and rising, she went to the bed and hugged him.
“Don’t, Sara!” said Charley, petulantly.
“I don’t want girls to squash me. Leave go, I say. You mend my trousers, and I ’ll take care of my self.”
“The little wretch!” thought Stephen.
Sara returned to her seat, and her needle went almost as fast as her sewing-machine. A glow had arisen now, and rested on her pale cheek: Stephen found himself staring at a kind of transfiguration, back from the ghostly to the human. His admiration extended itself to her deft and slender fingers and there brooded until his conscience informed him that he was actually admiring the breaking of the Sabbath; whereupon he rose. But all the time he was about amongst the rest of his people, his thoughts kept wandering back to the desolate room, the thankless boy, and the ministering woman. Before leaving, however, he had arranged with Sara that she should bring her brother to the shop the next day.
The awe with which she entered it was not shared by Charley, who was never ripe for anything but frolic. Had not Stephen been influenced by a desire to do good, and possibly by another feeling too embryonic for detection, he would never have dreamed of making an errand boy of a will-o’-the-wisp. As such, however, he was installed, and from that