'
I was too much astonished at first to ask him any questions, and he was
too much delighted to explain where and how he had known me; but after a
time, when we had recovered ourselves a little, we drew our chairs round
the fire, and he began his story.
'I was a poor little street Arab once,' he said; 'a forlorn boy with no
one to love him or to care for him. But I made friends with an old man
in the attic of the lodging-house who had a barrel-organ.'
'_That_ barrel-organ?' I asked.
'The very same,' he said, 'and he loved it as if it was a child. When he
was too ill to take it out himself, I took it for him, and that was how
I first saw your mother.'
'Was she married then?' I asked.
'No,' he said with a smile; 'she was quite a little girl, about the age
of our Marjorie. She used to run to her nursery window as soon as she
heard me begin to play. I let her turn the organ one day, and she said
she liked all the tunes, but she liked "Home, Sweet Home" the best of
all.'
'Did she?' I said. 'Yes, I have often heard her sing it; she sang me to
sleep with it many a time.
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