Unconsciously to
herself--almost unconsciously to the boy--her arms closed around him,
and she lifted him into her lap. There, with his head against her
breast, he concluded his story; and there were tears upon his hair,
rained from the eyes that bent above him. They sat for a long minute in
silence. Then the lady, to keep herself from bursting into hysterical
tears, kissed Harry again and again, exclaiming:
"My poor, dear boy! My dear, dear child! And Mr. Belcher could have
helped it all! Curse him!"
The lad jumped from her arms as if he had received the thrust of a
dagger, and looked at her with great, startled, wondering eyes. She
recognized in an instant the awful indiscretion into which she had been
betrayed by her fierce and sudden anger, and threw herself upon her
knees before the boy, exclaiming:
"Harry, you must forgive me. I was beside myself with anger. I did not
know what I was saying. Indeed, I did not. Come to my lap again, and
kiss me, or I shall be wretched."
Harry still maintained his attitude and his silence. A furious word from
an angel would not have surprised or pained him more than this
expression of her anger, that had flashed upon him like a fire from
hell.
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