CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.
COME BACK.
Raby had come home with a strange story from Storr Alley that afternoon.
She was not much given to romance, but to her there was something pathetic about this man "John" and his unceremonious adoption of those orphan children.

She had not seen anything exactly like it, and it moved both her admiration and her curiosity.
She had heard much about "John" from the neighbours, and all she had heard had been of the right sort.

Jonah had talked bitterly of him now and then, but before he died he had acknowledged that John had been his only friend.

Little Annie had never mentioned him without a smile brightening her face; and even those who had complaints to pour out about everybody all round could find nothing to say about him.

Yet she seemed destined never to see him.
The next day, at her usual time, Raby turned her steps to Storr Alley.
Groups of people stood about in the court, and it was evident, since she was last there, something untoward had happened.