He was tempted to open his heart and reveal the fact that three people would live on the sixpence a day which the baker’s kindness had procured him, but prudence was fast coming frontward, and he saw that no one must know that they were in that house! If it were known, they would probably be turned out at once, which would go far to be fatal to them as a family. For, if he had to pay for lodgings, were it no more than the tramps paid Tommy’s grandmother, sixpence a day would not suffice for bare shelter. So he held his tongue. “Thank me by minding Mr. Maidstone’s interests,” returned his benefactor. “If you don’t do well by him, the blame will come upon me.” “I will be very careful, sir,” answered Clare, who was too full of honesty to think of being honest; he thought only of minding orders. They reached the shop; the baker gave him a small loaf, and he hurried home with it. The joy in his heart, spread over the days since he left the farm, would have given each a fair amount of gladness. Taking heed that no one saw him, he darted through the passage to the well, got across it better this time, rushed over the wall like a cat, fell on the other side from the unsteadiness of his potsherds, rose and hurried into the house, with the feeble wail of his baby in his ears. Chapter XXXI. AN ADDITION TO THE FAMILY. The door to the kitchen was open: Tommy must be in the garden again! When he reached the nursery, as he called it to himself, he found the baby as he had left her, but moaning and wailing piteously. She looked as if she had cried till she was worn out. He threw down the clothes to take her. A great rat sprang from the bed. On one of the tiny feet the long thin toes were bleeding and raw. The same instant arose a loud scampering and scuffling and squealing in the room. Clare’s heart quivered. He thought it was a whole army of rats. He was not a bit afraid of them himself, but assuredly they were not company for baby! Already they had smelt food in the house, and come in a swarm! What was to be done with the little one? If he stayed at home with her, she must die of hunger; if he left her alone, the rats would eat her! They had begun already! Oh, that wretch, Tommy! Into the water-butt he should go! I hope their friends will not take it ill that, all his life after, Clare felt less kindly disposed toward rats than toward the rest of the creatures of God. But things were not nearly so bad as Clare thought: the scuffling came from quite another cause. It suddenly ceased, and a sharp scream followed. Clare turned with the baby in his arms. Almost at his feet, gazing up at him, the rat hanging limp from his jaws, stood the little castaway mongrel he had seen in the morning, his eyes flaming, and his tail wagging with wild homage and the delight of presenting the rat to one he would fain make his master.