"You think it's all right, don't you? It's strange Roger didn't leave me
a note of some kind. Our cook left a week ago and there was no one here
when he left."

"I reckon as how yer kid's all right, miss," he answered consolingly.

Her voluble confidences had enthralled him, and her reference of this
matter to his judgment was enormously flattering. On the rough edges of
society where he had spent most of his life, fellow craftsmen had
frequently solicited his advice, chiefly as to the disposition of their
ill-gotten gains or regarding safe harbors of refuge, but to be taken into
counsel by the only gentlewoman he had ever met roused his self-respect,
touched a chivalry that never before had been wakened in The Hopper's
soul. She was so like a child in her guilelessness, and so brave amid her
perplexities!

"Oh, I know Roger will take beautiful care of Billie. And now," she smiled
radiantly, "you're probably wondering what I've been driving at all this
time. Maybe"--she added softly--"maybe it's providential, your turning up
here in this way!"

She uttered this happily, with a little note of triumph and another of her
smiles that seemed to illuminate the universe. The Hopper had been called
many names in his varied career, but never before had he been invested
with the attributes of an agent of Providence.

"They's things wot is an' they's things wot ain't, miss; I reckon I ain't
as bad as some. I mean to be on the square, miss."