"I can earn my own living; I shall be no burden to you; I have a hope--such a grand hope, sir!--of making this home a different place to you. Why, I can always make the best of it, I think--_he_ thought so, too, before he died." "Who--my father?" asked Sidney, wondering. "Yes--he wished that I should come here, and I promised him. Oh! Mr. Sidney, for a little while, before you have become resigned to this great trouble, let me stay!" He might have read the truth--the whole truth--in that urgent pleading, but he was shut away from light, and sceptical of any love for him abiding anywhere throughout the world. "If he wished it, Mattie--stay. If your father says not No to this, why, stay until you tire of me, and the utter wretchedness of such a life as mine." "Why utterly wretched?" "I don't know--don't ask again." "Others have been afflicted like you before, sir, and borne their heavy burden well." "Why do you 'sir' me? That's new." "I called your father sir,--you take your father's place," said Mattie, hastily. "A strange reason--I wonder if it's true." Mattie coloured, but he could not see her blushes, and whether true or false, mattered little to him then. A new suspicion seized him after awhile, when he had thought more deeply of Mattie's presence there. "If this is a new trick of your father's to preach to me through you, I warn you, Mattie." "I have told you why I am here." "No other reason but that promise to my father?" "Yes, one promise more--to myself. Mr. Hinchford," she said, noticing his sudden start, "I promised my heart, when I was very young--when I was a stray!--that it should never swerve from those who had befriended me. It will not--it beats the faster with the hope of doing service to all who helped me in my wilful girlhood." "I told a lie, and said you did not steal my brooch!" "That was not all, but that taught me gratitude. Say a lie, but it was a lie that saved me from the prison--from the new life, worse, a thousand times worse than the first." "You are a strange girl--you were always strange. I am curious to know how soon you will tire of me, or I shall tire of you and this new freak. When I confess you weary me--you will go?" "Yes." "Then stay--and God help you with your charge."