Perhaps it is not strange that the startled inquiry
came to his heart: What if I belonged? Where did he belong now? He had
lost his place; he must make another. What if it should be in this
neighborhood, among these surroundings? Such thoughts did not take
actual shape to him, so that he could have put them into words; they
merely hovered in his atmosphere. Mrs. Roberts sat so that he could look
at her, which thing he liked to do. It had long since been settled in
his mind that he had one friend, and that one was Mrs. Roberts. He
admired Gracie Dennis, too, with a different sort of admiration from
that which he gave to the matron. She might be all very well; and she
was a splendid reader; and he knew that he could imitate her on certain
sentences, at least. And she had taught him to use the type-writer--an
accomplishment which he meant to perfect himself in as soon as he had a
chance. In fact, his ambition reached higher than that: one of these
days he meant to make one of his own with certain improvements! Who
shall say that Dirk was not growing?
On this particular day there sat beside Mrs. Roberts a lady,--a stranger.
He could not see her face, but for some reason, which he did not
understand, Dirk liked to look at her.
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