how 'd it all come round ? '' `` Please tell us , Thorn . '' The gentler request was answered presently , very steadily , very quietly . `` I was always a soft-hearted fellow , though you would n't think it now , and when that little girl asked me to keep her safe , I just did it . I took her to a good woman whom I knew , for I had n't any women folks belonging to me , nor any place but that to put her in . She stayed there till spring working for her keep , growing brighter , prettier , every day , and fonder of me , I thought . If I believed in witchcraft , I should n't think myself such a fool as I do now , but I do n't believe in it , and to this day I ca n't understand how I came to do it . To be sure I was a lonely man , without kith or kin , had never had a sweetheart in my life , or been much with women since my mother died . Maybe that 's why I was so bewitched with Mary , for she had little ways with her that took your fancy and made you love her whether you would or no . I found her father was an honest fellow enough , a fiddler in some theatre ; that he 'd taken good care of Mary till he died , leaving precious little but advice for her to live on . She 'd tried to get work , failed , spent all she had , got sick , and was going to the bad , as the poor souls can hardly help doing with so many ready to give them a shove . It 's no use trying to make a bad job better ; so the long and short of it was , I thought she loved me ; God knows I loved her ! and I married her before the year was out . '' `` Show us her picture ; I know you 've got one ; all the fellows have , though half of 'em wo n't own up . '' `` I 've only got part of one . I once saved my little girl , and her picture once saved me . '' From an inner pocket Thorn produced a woman 's housewife , carefully untied it , though all its implements were missing but a little thimble , and from one of its compartments took a flattened bullet and the remnants of a picture . `` I gave her that the first Christmas after I found her . She was n't as tidy about her clothes as I liked to see , and I thought if I gave her a handy thing like this , she 'd be willing to sew . But she only made one shirt for me , and then got tired , so I keep it like an old fool , as I am .
Yes , that 's the bit of lead that would have done for me , if XXXXX 's likeness had n't been just where it was . ''
Christmas Mary Thorn day fellow fiddler first kith use witchcraft