fell upon the streets. So quiet was it that once or twice the
conversation of passing pedestrians floated up and into his window, as
of voices at his elbow.
Presently he heard the sound of a child's voice singing in subdued tone,
as if fearful of being overheard. This time he laid aside his pen--it
certainly was no delusion! The sound did not come from the open
window, but from some space on a level with his room. Yet there was no
contiguous building as high.
He rose and tried to open his door softly, but it creaked, and the
singing instantly ceased. There was nothing before him but the bare,
empty hall, with its lathed and plastered partitions, and the two
smaller rooms, unfinished like his own, on either side of him. Their
doors were shut; the one at his right hand was locked, the other yielded
to his touch.
For the first moment he saw only the bare walls of the apparently empty
room. But a second glance showed him two children--a boy of seven and
a girl of five--sitting on the floor, which was further littered by
a mattress, pillow, and blanket. There was a cheap tray on one of the
trunks containing two soiled plates and cups and fragments of a meal.
But there was neither a chair nor table nor any other article of
furniture in the room. Yet he was struck by the fact that, in spite of
this poverty of surrounding, the children were decently dressed, and the
few scattered pieces of luggage in quality bespoke a superior condition.
The children met his astonished stare with an equal wonder and, he
fancied, some little fright. The boy's lips trembled a little as he said
apologetically--
"I told Jinny not to sing. But she didn't make MUCH noise."
"Mamma said I could play with my dolly. But I fordot and singed," said
the little girl penitently.
"Where's your mamma?" asked the young man. The fancy of their being
near relatives of the night watchman had vanished at the sound of their
voices.
"Dorn out," said the girl.
"When did she go out?"
"Last night."
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