Family life -- Juvenile fiction; Voyages and travels -- Juvenile fiction
He went away, for he was employed just then in blowing the organ, and
the organist was beckoning to him, so the woman turned to the children.
"My name is Mrs. Moseley, darlings, and ef you're content with a werry
small closet for you and yer dog, why, yer welcome, and I'll promise as
it shall be clean. Why, ef that'll do for the night's lodging, you
three jest get back into the church pew, and hide Toby well under the
seat, and I'll have done my work in about an hour, and then we'll go
back home to dinner."
CHAPTER V.
A HOUSE WITHOUT A DOOR.
The children in their wanderings the day before, and again this
morning, had quite unknown to themselves traveled quite away from
Bloomsbury, and when they entered the church, and sat down in that pew,
and hid Toby underneath, they were in the far-famed East-End quarter of
the great town. They knew nothing of this themselves, though Cecile did
think the houses very poor and the people very dirty. They were,
therefore, doubly fortunate in coming across Mrs. Moseley.
Mrs. Moseley was sextoness to the very new and beautiful church in Mile
End. Her husband was a policeman at present on night duty, which
accounted for his being at leisure to blow the organ in the church.
This worthy couple had a little grave to love and tend, a little grave
which kept their two hearts very green, but they had no living child.
Mrs. Moseley had, however, the largest of mother's hearts--a heart so
big that were it not for its capacity of acting mother to every
desolate child in Mr. Danvers' parish, it must have starved. Now, she
put Cecile and Maurice along with twenty more into that big heart of
hers, and they were a truly fortunate little pair when she took them
home.
Such a funny home was hers, but so clean when you got into it.
It was up a great many pairs of stairs, and the stairs at the top were
a good deal broken, and were black with use, and altogether
considerably out of repair. But the strangest part, though also the
most delightful to Maurice and Cecile in their funny new home, was the
fact that it had no door at all.
When you got to the top and looked for the door, you were confronted
with nothing but a low ceiling over your head, and a piece of rope
within reach of your hand. If you pulled the rope hard enough, up would
suddenly jump two or three boards, and then there was an opening big
enough for you to creep into the little kitchen.
Yes, it was the queerest entrance into the oddest little home. But when
once you got there how cozy it all was!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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