Luke was there, standing with his head bent by the sewing machine; the wife sat in a chair, and on her knees, with her face buried in the wife's lap, was the poor girl, crying as if her little heart would break; while on the bed, with all the look of pain gone out of her face, lay the widow--gone to meet her husband where pain and sorrow are no more. I couldn't see very plainly, for there was a mist-like before my eyes; but I know Luke flushed up as he took a step forward, as if to protect the girl, and the wife looked at me in a frightened way. But there was no need, for something that wasn't me spoke, and that in a very gentle way, as I stepped forward, raised the girl up, and kissed her pretty face before laying her little helpless head upon my shoulder, and smoothing her soft brown hair. "Mother," says that something from within me, "I think there's room in the nest at home for this poor, forsaken little bird. Luke, my boy, will you go and fetch a cab? Mother will see to what wants doing here." My boy gave a sob as he caught my hand in his, and the next moment he did what he had not done for years--kissed me on the cheek--before running out of the room, leaving me with my darling nestling in my breast. I said "my darling," for she has been the sunshine of our home ever since--a pale, wintry sunshine while the sorrow was fresh, but spring and summer now. Why, bless her! look at her. I've felt ashamed sometimes to think that she, a lady by birth, should come down to such a life, making me--well, no, it's us now, for Luke's partner--no end of money by her clever ways. But she's happy, thinking her husband that is to be the finest fellow under the sun; and let me tell you there's many a gentleman not so well off as my boy will be, even if the money has all come out of a queer trade. CHAPTER SIX. A BIRD IN A CAGE. My visits to Burt's Buildings resulted in others to the neighbourhood where I made the acquaintance of Uncle Bill, as he was generally called by the swarming children about the place; not from any relationship, in fact for no reason at all that I could discover. One woman said it was because he was lame; another thought he was like an uncle, but all the same the little man often met me on my rounds, at first to look at me very dubiously, but ever after to pull his pipe out of his mouth, tap the bowl upon the pavement and thrust it into his pocket, out of compliment to me as a lady who might not like smoke. "'Taint in a woman's natur', mum, to like smoke," he said, when I hinted that he need not put out his pipe, and no matter when we met I always received from him this bit of politeness. Rumour reached me one morning, after a short visit to the country, that a dilapidated tenement or two, in this deplorable neighbourhood had fallen down, and on making my way to the place, the first person I encountered was Uncle Bill, pipe in mouth, and with a half-quartern loaf in one hand, and a rasher of bacon in the other.