"Poor David!" she would say, sometimes, "if anybody could only make him
think he _was_ somebody, he'd _be_ somebody. But he 'a'n't got no
confidence."
"Mother," I would answer, "don't worry about David. He's good, and
goodness is as good as anything."
She liked to have me call her mother. I had been there so long that I
almost filled the place of one of her lost ones. Besides, I had no
mother of my own, and no real home.
Miss Joey, not being past thirty, had a plan in her head. Her head was
small,--so was she,--but the plan was large enough and good enough.
This plan, however, was upset, and by her own means, even before the
prospect of its being carried out was even probable. It was Miss Joey's
own notion that one half the house should be let.
"We are so dwindled down," she said. "A small, quiet family would bring
in a little something, and be company." This was at the close of a long
and rather lonely winter.
So, one day, Mr. Lane came home, and said he had let the other half to a
family from up-country,--man and wife and little girl.
"The very thing!" said Miss Joey.
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