Up a crazy flight of steps, and turning to the right, Arch saw that the door of his mother’s room was half-way open, and the storm had beaten in on the floor.  It was all damp and dismal, and such an indescribable air of desolation over anything!  Archer’s heart beat a little slower as he went in.  His mother sat in an arm-chair by the window, an uncovered box in her lap, and a miniature locket clasped in her hand.

“Oh, mother! mother dearest!” cried Arch, holding up the flowers, “only see what I have got!  An angel gave them to me!  A very angel, with hair like the sunshine, and a blue frock, all real silk!  And I have got my pocket full of pennies, and you shall have an orange, mother, and ever so many nice things besides.  See, mother dear!”

He displayed a handful of coin, but she did not notice him.  He looked at her through the gloom of the twilight, and a feeling of terrible awe stole over him.  He crept to her side, and touched her cheek with his finger.  It was cold as ice.  A mortal pallor overspread his face; the pennies and the flowers rolled unheeded to the floor.

“Dead! dead!  My mother is dead!” he cried.

He did not display any of the passionate grief which is natural to childhood—­there were no tears in his feverish eyes.  He took her cold hand in his own, and stood there all night long, smoothing back the beautiful hair, and talking to her as one would talk to a sick child.

It was thus that Mat Miller found him the next morning.  Mat was a little older than himself—­a street-sweeper also.  She and Arch had always been good friends; they sympathized with each other when bad luck was on them, and they cheered lustily when fortune smiled.

“Hurrah, Arch!” cried Mat, as she burst into the room; “it rains again, and we shall get a harvest!  Good gracious, Arch! is—­your—­mother—­dead?”

“Hush!” said the boy, putting down the cold hand; “I have been trying to warm her all night, but it is no use.  Only just feel how like ice my hands are.  I wish I was as cold all over, and then they would let me stay with my mother.”

“Oh, Arch!” cried the girl, sinking down beside him on the desolate hearth, “it’s a hard world to live in!  I wonder, if, when folks be dead, they have to sweep crossings, and be kicked and cuffed round by old grandmas when they don’t get no pennies?  If they don’t then I wish I was dead, too, Arch!”

“I suppose it’s wicked, Mat. She used to say so.  She told me never to get tired of waiting for God’s own time—­her very words, Mat.  Well, now her time has come, and I am all alone—­all alone!  Oh, mother—­mother!” He threw himself down before the dead woman, and his form shook with emotion, but not a tear came to his eyes.  Only that hard, stony look of hopeless despair.  Mat crept up to him and took his head in her lap, smoothing softly the matted chestnut hair.

“Don’t take on so, Arch! don’t!” she cried the tears running down over her sunburnt face.  “I’ll be a mother to ye, Arch!  I will indeed!  I know I’m a little brat, but I love you, Arch, and some time, when we get bigger, I’ll marry you, Arch, and we’ll live in the country, where there’s birds and flowers, and it’s just like the Park all round.  Don’t feel so—­don’t!”