'The mother's dead, and I reckon it's got no father: it's a
lone thing- and I'm a lone thing. My money's gone, I don't know where-
and this is come from I don't know where. I know nothing- I'm partly
mazed.'
'Poor little thing!' said Godfrey. 'Let me give something towards
finding it clothes.'
He had put his hand in his pocket and found half-a-guinea, and,
thrusting it into Silas's hand, he hurried out of the cottage to
overtake Mr Kimble.
'Ah, I see it's not the same woman I saw,' he said, as he came
up. 'It's a pretty little child: the old fellow seems to want to
keep it; that's strange for a miser like him. But I gave him a
trifle to help him out: the parish isn't likely to quarrel with him
for the right to keep the child.'
'No; but I've seen the time when I might have quarrelled with him
for it myself. It's too late now, though. If the child ran into the
fire, your aunt's too fat to overtake it: she could only sit and grunt
like an alarmed sow. But what a fool you are, Godfrey, to come out
in your dancing shoes and stockings in this way- and you one of the
beaux of the evening, and at your own house! What do you mean by
such freaks, young fellow? Has Miss Nancy been cruel, and do you
want to spite her by spoiling your pumps?'
'Oh, everything has been disagreeable tonight. I was tired to death
of jigging and gallanting, and that bother about the hornpipes.
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