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Updated: June 23, 2025
O'Malligan, having returned meanwhile with a cup filled with a thin blue liquid known to the Tenement as milk, "a plain case of desartion, an' whut's to be done about it, I niver can say!" "Done!" cried Miss Bonkowski, on her knees before Mary and the child, crumbling some bread into the milk, "and what are the police for but just such cases?" The other ladies glanced apprehensively at Mrs.
Many were the murmurs and ejaculations from the circle of wondering ladies, while Miss Bonkowski, a frowzy-headed lady in soiled shirt waist and shabby skirt, with a small waist and shoulders disproportionately broad; and with, moreover, a dab of paint upon each high-boned cheek, nothing daunted by previous failures, leaned forward and putting a somewhat soiled finger beneath the child's pretty chin, inquired persuasively, "And isn't the darling going to tell its Norma its name?"
And, as though the manager at the Garden Opera House had divined that Miss Bonkowski had left another birthday behind her, like milestones along the way, that lady's salary received a cut on the first day of August. At best, the united incomes of the two made but a meagre sum, and there was nothing for it now but to reduce expenses.
Again the tears were checked, while the grave, disapproving surprise which Miss Bonkowski's ignorance seemed to call forth, once more overspread the small face, "Didn't a know her are three?" she returned reprovingly, reaching for the improvised and alluring plaything. "Yes, yes," murmured Miss Bonkowski apologetically, "Angel is three years old, of course, a great, big girl."
"Say?" came from Miss Bonkowski quickly, her befrizzled blonde tresses fairly a-tremble with her intensity, and sticking the hat-pin recklessly in and out of the lace hat she had taken off, "what did we say, you ask, and knowing, as you and every body must, the kind of life and future it would mean for a child that takes to things like this 'n does!
"She is the most fascinating little creature I ever met in my life," the prima donna had cried to the excited Miss Bonkowski, who had never been addressed by that great personage before, "did you ever see such heavenly eyes, not blue violet and such a smile like the sun through tears! Who is she, where did she come from? Such grace, such poise!"
Miss Bonkowski was not ungrateful for this expression of loyalty, which she acknowledged with a smile, as she tightened the buckle on the very high-heeled and coquettish slipper she was rejuvenating, but she protested, nevertheless, that all this did not alter the fact that the Angel must be clothed. "As fer th' dirt," said the energetic Mrs.
Miss Carew, tall, bony, and more commonly known to the Tenement as Miss C'rew, of somewhat tart and acrid temper, being pressed for her version of the story, paused in her awkward and intent efforts at soothing the beautiful, fair-haired child upon her lap and explained that she was stepping out her door that morning with her water-bucket, thinking to get breakfast ready before Miss Bonkowski awoke, when a child's frightened crying startled her, coming from a room across the hall which for some weeks had been for rent.
"A gwate, big girl," repeated the baby, nodding her pretty head approvingly, "that what Yosie say," then with abrupt change of tone, "where her breakfast, her wants her milk!" "An' she shall have it, sure," cried Mrs. O'Malligan promptly, and retired out the door with heavy haste, while Miss Bonkowski hospitably turned to bring forth what the apartment could boast in the way of breakfast.
"That's what she is, the darling yonder," declared Miss Bonkowski from the curbstone, nodding airily, "you've got it straight this time, Joey. And if what Peter O'Malligan says about your picking her up just now is so, you're welcome to come over some time and play with her."
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