“I wonder whatever the Lord ’ud have said,” he exclaimed, “if there’d been such a place as this in his days!  He’d have come here very often.  He does come, I know, and walks to and fro here of nights when the little ones are asleep, or may be awake through pain, and he blesses every one of them.  Ah, bless them!  Bless the little children, and the good folks who keep a place like this.  Bless them everyone!”

He felt reluctant to go away; but his time was gone, and the nurse was needed elsewhere.  She kissed Dolly before she went, putting a biscuit in her hand, and told Oliver the house was open every Sunday afternoon for the friends of the children, if he chose to come again; and then they walked home with slow, short footsteps, and all the Sunday evening they talked together of the beautiful place they had seen, and how happy Tony would be in the Children’s Hospital.

CHAPTER XV.

Tony’s future prospects.

Old Oliver and Dolly made several visits to Tony while he was in the hospital.  Every Sunday afternoon they went back to it, until its great door, and wide staircase, and sunny ward, became almost as familiar to them as their own dull little house.  Tony recovered quickly, yet he was there some weeks before the doctor pronounced him strong enough to turn out again to rough it in the world.  As he grew better he learned a number of things which were making him a wiser, as well as a stronger boy, before the time came for him to leave.

The day before he was to go out of hospital, his friend, Mr. Ross, who had been often to see him, called for the last time, and found him in the room where the little patients who were nearly well were at play together.  Some of them were making believe to have a feast, with a small dinner-service of wooden plates and dishes, and a few bits of orange-peel, and biscuits; but Tony was sitting quietly and gravely on one side, looking on from a distance.  He had never learned to play.

“Antony,” said Mr. Ross—­he was the only person who ever called him Antony, and it seemed to make more of a man of him—­“what are you thinking to do when you leave here to-morrow?”

“I s’pose I must go back to my crossing,” answered Tony, looking very grave.

“No, I think I can do better for you than that,” said his friend, “I have a sister living out in the country, about fifty miles from London; and she wants a boy to help the gardener, and run on errands for the house.  She has promised to provide you with a home, and clothing, and to send you to school for two years, till you are about twelve, for we think you must be about ten years old now; and after that you shall have settled wages.”

Tony listened with a quick throbbing of his heart and a contraction in his throat, which hindered him from speaking all at once when Mr. Ross had finished.  What a grand thing it would be for himself!  But then there were old Oliver and Dolly to be remembered.