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He lingered late that evening, but at length took his hat from under his chair, rose, and extended his hand. "Man alive!" she cried, "that's my hand, sur, I'd have ye to know. Begahn wid ye! Lookut heere! What's the reason ye make it so long atween yer visits, eh? Tell me that. Ah ah ye've no need fur to tell me, Mr. Ristofalo! Ah now don't tell a lie!" "Too busy. Come all time wasn't too busy."
But a moment afterwards one of the sailors in the bows pointed upwards and yelled excitedly: "Hi! hi! there aloft! Lookut th' bloomin' mad 'un!" At last one of the castaways! High above, on the very brink of the precipice, near the outer end of the headland, a man stood waving down to the ship in wild excitement. Lord James hastily focussed his glasses upon the beckoner.
"Oh, she's jes' dessame as she ever was, ain' she? She's her mudder's purty darlin' yit, ain' she? Lookut her, Jimmie! Come here, fer Gawd's sake, and lookut her." The loud, tremendous sneering of the mother brought the denizens of the Rum Alley tenement to their doors. Women came in the hallways. Children scurried to and fro. "What's up? Dat Johnson party on anudder tear?" "Naw!
She stood shivering beneath the torrent of her mother's wrath. "Well, I'm damned," said Jimmie in greeting. His mother, tottering about the room, pointed a quivering forefinger. "Lookut her, Jimmie, lookut her. Dere's yer sister, boy. Dere's yer sister. Lookut her! Lookut her!" She screamed in scoffing laughter. The girl stood in the middle of the room.
She edged about as if unable to find a place on the floor to put her feet. "Ha, ha, ha," bellowed the mother. "Dere she stands! Ain' she purty? Lookut her! Ain' she sweet, deh beast? Lookut her! Ha, ha, lookut her!" She lurched forward and put her red and seamed hands upon her daughter's face. She bent down and peered keenly up into the eyes of the girl.
Maggie's mother paced to and fro, addressing the doorful of eyes, expounding like a glib showman at a museum. Her voice rang through the building. "Dere she stands," she cried, wheeling suddenly and pointing with dramatic finger. "Dere she stands! Lookut her! Ain' she a dindy? An' she was so good as to come home teh her mudder, she was! Ain' she a beaut'? Ain' she a dindy? Fer Gawd's sake!"
"I don't think you are half so bad as you think you are, Mr. Grey," she said softly. "For my part, I am happy in the belief that my friends will not desert me." "Lookut here," he said with gruff sympathy, "why don't you pull with your people instead of ag'in' 'em. I know what I'm talkin' about. This yer Voles but, steady! Mebbe I best shut up." Winifred's heart bounded.
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