Page 474 - for-the-term-of-his-natural-life

the little being, she drew him to her, with sudden womanly
instinct, and kissed him. He looked up at her with joyful
surprise. ‘Oh!’ he said.
Sylvia kissed him again.
‘Does nobody ever kiss you, poor little man?’ said she.
‘Mother used to,’ was the reply, ‘but she’s at home. Oh,
mum,’ with a sudden crimsoning of the little face, ‘may I
fetch Billy?’
And taking courage from the bright young face, he
gravely marched to an angle of the rock, and brought out
another little creature, with another grey uniform and an-
other hammer.
‘This is Billy, mum,’ he said. ‘Billy never had no mother.
Kiss Billy.’
The young wife felt the tears rush to her eyes. ‘You two
poor babies!’ she cried. And then, forgetting that she was
a lady, dressed in silk and lace, she fell on her knees in the
dust, and, folding the friendless pair in her arms, wept over
them.
‘What is the matter, Sylvia?’ said Frere, when he came up.
‘You’ve been crying.’
‘Nothing, Maurice; at least, I will tell you by and by.’
When they were alone that evening, she told him of the
two little boys, and he laughed. ‘Artful little humbugs,’ he
said, and supported his argument by so many illustrations
of the precocious wickedness of juvenile felons, that his
wife was half convinced against her will.
* * * * * *
Unfortunately, when Sylvia went away, Tommy and Billy