The next Sunday, after he had had his dinner, he went out into the
same region, and found himself at Sara's door. She was busy over a
garment of Charley's, who was sitting on the bed with half a loaf in
his hand. When he recognized Stephen he jumped down, and would have
rushed from the room; but changing his mind, possibly because of the
condition of his lower limbs, he turned, and springing into the bed,
scrambled under the counterpane, and drew it over his head.
"I am sorry to see you working on Sunday," Stephen said, with an
emphasis that referred to their previous conversation.
"You would not have the boy go naked?" she returned, with again a
touch of indignation. She had been thinking how easily a man of
Stephen's social position could get him a place if he would. Then
recollecting her manners, she added, "I should get him better clothes
if he had a place. Wouldn't you like to get a place now, Charley?"
"Yes," said Charley, from under the counterpane, and began to peep at
the visitor.
He was not an ill-looking boy--only roguish to a degree. His eyes, as
black as his sister's, but only half as big, danced and twinkled with
mischief. Archer would have taken him off to his ragged class, but
even of rags he had not at the moment the complement necessary for
admittance. He left them, therefore, with a few commonplaces of
religious phrase, falling utterly meaningless. But he was not one to
confine his ministrations to words: he was an honest man. Before the
next Sunday it was clear to him that he could do nothing for the soul
of Sara until he had taken the weight of her brother off it.
When he called the next Sunday the same vision precisely met his
view. She might have been sitting there ever since, with those
wonderfully-patched trousers in her hands, and the boy beside her,
gnawing at his lump of bread. But many a long seam had passed
through her fingers since then, for she worked at a clothes-shop all
the week with the sewing-machine, whence arose the possibility of
patching Charley's clothes, for the overseer granted her a cutting
or two now and then.
After a little chat, Stephen put the question:
"If I find a place for Charley, will you go to Providence Chapel next
Sunday?"
"I will go _anywhere_ you please, Mr. Archer," she answered, looking
up quickly with a flushed face. She would have accompanied him to any
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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