"What are you staring at?" the girl asked, presently, growing uneasy over
the fixedness of his gaze. "Do you see anything uncommon about me?"
"Where's mother?" he asked, dropping his eyes, and turning from her.
"In there, asleep. You needn't talk quite so loud; it won't hurt her to
get a bit of rest. She sat up till morning, poking at your old coat."
Dirk looked down at it thoughtfully. There had been an attempt to make
it decent, although the setting of the patches showed an unpractised
hand, and they were of a strikingly different color from the coat
itself.
"You might have done it for her, then, in the daytime," he said, briefly,
and added, "Where's father?"
The girl shrugged her shoulders.
"How should I know? Where he is most of the time; you know more about
it than I do, or ought to; you live on the street."
He gave her an answer which seemed to surprise her:--
"I say, Mart, what is the use in being so horrid cross all the time?"
"You are so good-natured," she said, "and everything is so nice and
pleasant around me, it is a wonder that I should ever be cross!"
"That's all lost, Mart, for I never said I was good-natured, nor thought
I was; and if I don't know just how hateful things are, I should like to
know who does! But, after all, what good does it do to snarl? Why
couldn't you and me say a good-natured word once in a while, just for
a change?"
"Try it," she said; "I wish you would! I'm so tired of things as they
now are, that most any change would be fine.
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