“What is the matter?” he said.

“What does he do without his coat if it is as cold as that where he lives?” asked Amabel, severely.  There was almost an accent of horror in her childish voice.

“Why, my dear child,” said Robert, “the little animal is dead.  He isn’t running around without his coat.  He was shot for his fur.”

“To make you a coat?” Amabel’s voice was full of judicial severity.

“Well, in one way,” replied Robert, laughing.  “It was shot to get the fur to make somebody a coat, and I bought it.  Come back here and have it wrapped round you; you’ll freeze if you don’t.”

Amabel came back and sat on his knee, and let him wrap the fur-lined garment around her.  A strange sensation of tenderness and protection came over the young man as he felt the little, slender body of the child nestle against his own.  He had begun to surmise who she was.  However, Amabel herself told him in a moment.

“My mamma’s sick, and they took her to an asylum.  And my papa has gone away,” she said.

“You poor little soul,” said Robert, tenderly.  Amabel continued to look at him with eyes of keenest intelligence, while one little cheek was flattened against his breast.

“I live with Uncle Andrew and Aunt Fanny now,” said she, “and I sleep with Ellen.”

“But you like living here, don’t you, you dear?” asked Robert.

“Yes,” said Amabel, “and I like to stay with Ellen, but—­but—­I want to see my mamma and papa,” she wailed, suddenly, in the lowest and most pitiful wail imaginable.

“Poor little darling,” said Robert, stroking her flaxen hair.  Amabel looked up at him with her little face all distorted with grief.

“If you had been my papa, would you have gone away and left Amabel?” she asked, quiveringly.  Robert gathered her to him in a strong clasp of protection.

“No, you little darling, I never should,” he cried, fervently.

At that moment he wished devoutly that he had the handling of the man who had deserted this child.

“I like you most as well as my own papa,” said Amabel.  “You ain’t so big as my papa.”  She said that in a tone of evident disparagement.

Then the sitting-room door opened, and Fanny and Ellen and Andrew appeared, the last with a great basket of wood and kindlings.

Robert set down Amabel, and sprang to his feet to greet Andrew and Ellen.  Andrew, after depositing his basket beside the stove, shook hands with a sort of sad awkwardness.  Robert saw that the man had aged immeasurably since he had last seen him.

“It is a cold night, Mr. Brewster,” he said, and knew the moment he said it that it was not a happy remark.

“It is pretty cold,” agreed Andrew, “and it’s cold here in this room.”

“Oh, it’ll be warm in a minute; this stove heats up quick,” cried Fanny, with agitated briskness.  She began pulling the kindlings out of the basket.