It was the first time since our entry, that a tear had been shed among these children. The little orphan girl had spoken of their father and their mother, as if all that sorrow was subdued by the necessity of taking courage, and by her childish importance in being able to work, and by her bustling busy way. But now, when Tom cried; although she sat quite tranquil, looking quietly at us, and did not by any movement disturb a hair of the head of either of her little charges, I saw two silent tears fall down her face. I stood at the window pretending to look out, when I found that Mrs. Blinder, from the shop below, had come in, and was talking to my guardian. "It's not much to forgive 'em the rent, sir,---who could take it from them!" "Well, well!" said my guardian to us two. "It is enough that the time will come when this good woman will find that it _was_ much, and that forasmuch as she did it to one of the least of these--! This child," he added after a few moments, "Could she possibly continue this?" "Really, sir, I think she might," said Mrs. Blinder. "She's as handy as it's possible to be. Bless you sir, the way she tended them two children, after the mother died, was the talk of the yard! And it was a wonder to see her with him, after he was took ill, it really was!--'Mrs. Blinder,' he said to me, the very last he spoke--'Mrs. Blinder, whatever my calling may have been, I see a Angel sitting in this room last night along with my child, and I trust her to our Father!'" From all that we had heard and seen, we felt a deep interest in the bright, self-reliant little creature, with her womanly ways and burden of family cares, and my thoughts turned towards her many times, after we had kissed her, and taken her downstairs with us, and stopped to see her run away to her work. We saw her run, such a little, little creature, in her womanly bonnet and apron, through a covered way at the bottom of the court, and melt into the city's strife and sound, like a dewdrop in an ocean. Some weeks later, at the close of a happy evening spent at Bleak House with my guardian and my dearest girl, I went at last to my own room, and presently heard a soft tap at the door, so I said, "Come in!" and there came in a pretty little girl, neatly dressed in mourning, who dropped a curtsey. "If you please, miss," said the little girl in a soft voice, "I am Charley." "Why so you are," said I, stooping down in astonishment, and giving her a kiss. "How glad am I to see you, Charley!" "If you please, miss," pursued Charley, "I'm your maid!" "Charley?"