"You may well say so," continued Aunt Judy. "It was just what
everybody said who saw them at the time. When they went about with
their widowed father in the country village where 'they lived, even
the poor women who stood at their cottage door-steads, would look
after them when they had passed, and say with a sigh:-

"'Poor little things!'

"When they went up to London in the winter to stay with their
grandmamma, and walked about in the Square in their little black
frocks and crape-trimmed bonnets, the ladies who saw them,--even
comparative strangers,--would turn round arid say:-

"'Poor little things!'

"If visitors came to call at the house, and the children were sent
for into the room, there was sure to be a whispered exclamation
directly among the grown-up people of, 'Poor little things!' But oh,
No. 6! the children themselves did not think about it at all. What
did they know,--poor little things,--of the real misfortune which had
befallen them! They were sorry, of course, at first, when they did
not see their mamma as usual, and when she did not come back to them
as soon as they expected. But some separation had taken place during
her illness; and sometimes before, she had been poorly and got well
again; and sometimes she had gone out visiting, and they had had to
do without her till she returned; and so, although the days and weeks
of her absence went on to months, still it was only the same thing
they had felt before, continued rather longer; and meantime the
little events of each day rose up to distract their attention. They