“God bless the boy!” said the woman impatiently, and stared at him speechless. Her daughter in the meantime had filled the phial with new milk. She handed it to him. He grasped it eagerly. Tears of joy came in his big hungry eyes. “Oh, _thank_ you, ma’am!” he said. “But, please, would you tell me,” he continued, looking from the one to the other, “how much water I must put in the milk to make it good for baby? I know it wants water, but I don’t know how much!” “Oh, about half and half,” answered the elder woman. “Ain’t she got no mother?” she resumed. “I think she must have a mother, but I daresay she’s a tramp,” answered Clare. “I don’t want to give my good milk to a tramp!” she rejoined. “_I_’m not a tramp, please, ma’am!--at least I wasn’t till the day before yesterday.” The woman looked at him out of motherly eyes, and her heart swelled into her bosom. “Wouldn’t you like some milk yourself?” she said. “Oh, yes, ma’am!” answered Clare, with a deep sigh. She filled a big cup from the warm milk in the pail, and held it out to him. He took it as a man on the scaffold might a reprieve from death, half lifted it to his lips, then let his hand sink. It trembled so, as he set the cup down on a shelf beside him, that he spilled a little. He looked ruefully at the drops on the brick floor. “Please, ma’am, there’s Tommy!” he faltered. His promise to Tommy had sprung upon him like a fiery flying serpent. “Tommy! I thought you said the baby was a girl?” “Yes, the baby’s a girl; but there’s Tommy as well! He’s another of us.” “Your brother, of course!” “No, ma’am; I’m afraid he’s a tramp. But there he is, you see, and I must share with him!” It grew more and more inexplicable! A gruff, loud voice came from the yard. It was the farmer’s. He was a bitter-tempered man, and his dislike of tramps was almost hatred. His wife and daughter knew that if he saw the boy he would be worse than rude to him. “There’s the master!” cried the mother. “Drink, and make haste out of his way.” “If it’s stealing,--” said Clare. “Stealing! It’s no stealing! The dairy’s mine! I can give my milk where I please!” “Well, ma’am, if the milk’s mine because you gave it me, it’s not begging to ask you to give me a piece of bread for it! I could take a share of that to Tommy!” “Run, Chris,” cried the mother, hurriedly; “take the innocent with you--round outside the yard. Give him a hunch of bread, and let him go. For God’s sake don’t let your father see him! Run, my boy, run! There’s no time to drink the milk now!” She poured it back into the pail, and set the cup out of the way. There was a little passage and another door, by which they left as the farmer entered. The kick he would have given Clare with his heavy boot would, in its consequences, have reached the baby too. The girl ran with him to the back of the house. “Wait a moment at that window,” she said.