“That’s soon done; it’s mine, and you’re welcome to the bits your queer dog ran off with.  Come along, I must lock up,” and Mrs. Moss clanked her keys suggestively.

Ben limped out, leaning on a broken hoe-handle, for he was stiff after two days in such damp lodgings, as well as worn out with a fortnight’s wandering through sun and rain.  Sancho was in great spirits, evidently feeling that their woes were over and his foraging expeditions at an end, for he frisked about his master with yelps of pleasure, or made playful darts at the ankles of his benefactress, which caused her to cry, “Whish!” and “Scat!” and shake her skirts at him as if he were a cat or hen.

A hot fire was roaring in the stove under the broth-skillet and tea-kettle, and Betty was poking in more wood, with a great smirch of black on her chubby cheek, while Bab was cutting away at the loaf as if bent on slicing her own fingers off.  Before Ben knew what he was about, he found himself in the old rocking-chair devouring bread and butter as only a hungry boy can, with Sancho close by gnawing a mutton-bone like a ravenous wolf in sheep’s clothing.

While the new-comers were thus happily employed, Mrs. Moss beckoned the little girls out of the room, and gave them both an errand.

“Bab, you run over to Mrs. Barton’s, and ask her for any old duds Billy don’t want; and Betty, you go to the Cutters, and tell Miss Clarindy I’d like a couple of the shirts we made at last sewing circle.  Any shoes, or a hat, or socks, would come handy, for the poor dear hasn’t a whole thread on him.”

Away went the children full of anxiety to clothe their beggar, and so well did they plead his cause with the good neighbors, that Ben hardly knew himself when he emerged from the back bedroom half an hour later, clothed in Billy Barton’s faded flannel suit, with an unbleached cotton shirt out of the Dorcas basket, and a pair of Milly Cutter’s old shoes on his feet.

Sancho also had been put in better trim, for, after his master had refreshed himself with a warm bath, he gave his dog a good scrub, while Mrs. Moss set a stitch here and there in the new old clothes, and Sancho re-appeared, looking more like the china poodle than ever, being as white as snow, his curls well brushed up, and his tassely tail waving proudly over his back.

Feeling eminently respectable and comfortable, the wanderers humbly presented themselves, and were greeted with smiles of approval from the little girls and a hospitable welcome from “Ma,” who set them near the stove to dry, as both were decidedly damp after their ablutions.

“I declare I shouldn’t have known you!” exclaimed the good woman, surveying the boy with great satisfaction; for, though still very thin and tired, the lad had a tidy look that pleased her, and a lively way of moving about in his clothes, like an eel in a skin rather too big for him.  The merry black eyes seemed to see everything, the voice had an honest sound, and the sun-burnt face looked several years younger since the unnatural despondency had gone out of it.