‘Not before ye have tasted such hospitality as I have to give ye, me heroic boy. The saviour of me child must not go from me doors without a sign of me appreciation--without a bit of supper, at least. Maria! are ye come at last? And here is our honoured guest that says he must go. Come, child, and bid ye’r deliverer stay.’ ‘Wait and take some supper,’ said the woman, with her pathetic look; ‘it will be a pleasure to us both. It’s not late, and you needn’t fear; you’ll get no harm.’ ‘Harm!’ said her husband, ‘from you, me love, or from Montressor? No, he will get no harm, whatever a brutal manager or designing critics may say. Thank God, Maria, corrupting the young was never laid to your husband’s charge, me dear. He shall see that conscious virtue is not ashamed of humble offices. I will prepare the table while she makes ready our food. There is nothing derogatory in that, me young friend. Look at Mrs. Montreseor if you would see one that is superior to every fortune. She has had her cooks, her housemaids, her grooms; she has driven in her own carriages, and worn silks and satins. And now ye see her preparing to fry the sausages. And which is the finest office?--the last, sir!--for she’s always a lady--a perfect lady--whatever her occupation may be.’ John did not feel called upon to make any answer to this. He sat in a half dream of wonderment, while all these domestic arrangements went on in this strange little interior, where all was so new and extraordinary to him. How had he got there? What sort of place was it? What kind of people were these? The curious serio-comic character of the episode did not strike him so much as it might have done an older spectator; but the hissing of the sausages on the fire, before which this unknown woman stood, her wistful eyes fixed upon the frying-pan, while her husband, with his fine language and fine sentiments, laid the cloth upon the table behind, were too strange, too peculiar, too ridiculous, even--for he was hungry again, and there was a sort of warm friendliness in the air that comforted his young, childish soul--too comfortable, not to affect the boy. He felt a sort of pleasurable disquietude and alarm and embarrassment. He ought to go, he felt, but he was shy and they were kind, and he did not know how to get himself away. Presently the child who was the occasion of it all, and who had clung to her mother’s skirts all the time, pulled a stool towards John’s feet, and sitting down by him began to pat his leg with soft little touches. ‘Did it hurt much,’ she said, ‘that big horse’s foot? I called mamma and it was you. What made you get hurt for a poor little girl like me?’ ‘What made him? It was God, Edie, to save you to mother: and God bless him for it,’ said the woman, turning round. ‘It was a heroic action,’ said Montressor, ‘it was the act of a hero, me chyild. Your saviour will always be to us a noble youth. Me young benefactor, as yet we do not know your honoured name.’