if they says you go for to cheat!"

Paul vanished; and the dame, laying her hand on Dummie's shoulder, said,
--

"There be nothing like a friend in need, Dummie; and somehow or other, I
thinks as how you knows more of the horigin of that 'ere lad than any of
us!"

"Me, dame!" exclaimed Dummie, with a broad gaze of astonishment.

"Ah, you! you knows as how the mother saw more of you just afore she died
than she did of 'ere one of us. Noar, now, noar, now! Tell us all about
'un. Did she steal 'un, think ye?"

"Lauk, Mother Margery, dost think I knows? Vot put such a crotchet in
your 'ead?"

"Well!" said the dame, with a disappointed sigh, "I always thought as how
you were more knowing about it than you owns. Dear, dear, I shall never
forgit the night when Judith brought the poor cretur here,--you knows she
had been some months in my house afore ever I see'd the urchin; and when
she brought it, she looked so pale and ghostly that I had not the heart
to say a word, so I stared at the brat, and it stretched out its wee
little hands to me. And the mother frowned at it, and throwed it into my
lap."

"Ah! she was a hawful voman, that 'ere!" said Dummie, shaking his head.
"But howsomever, the hurchin fell into good 'ands; for I be's sure you
'as been a better mother to 'un than the raal 'un!"