Edgedancer: Chapter 6

Lift has a conversation in urchin gibberish with a little girl and gives the girl her handkerchief in exchange for the information. Wyndle comments on the odd words and terms spoken. She says it just felt right and now knows where they can get food. She's curious about the manner in which differing peoples use currency, noting that people were strange about money.
Lift seeks out Tashi's Light Orphanage, but has to wait to receive food upon arrival. She watches as a woman leaves a young boy at the orphanage. In Lift's experience, orphanages were full of kids like the boy; tough to care for. She approaches him, attempts to console him, but he doesn't reply. Lift determines that the woman who runs the orphanage is is a shriveled-up weed. After welcoming the boy inside, the woman lays out the rules for receiving food and points to some stone benches where Lift might sleep the night, then shuts the door. Another boy in the orphanage tosses a loaf of bread out the door for Lift to eat. She begins eating, then speaks with one of the old men (i.e., Arclo) on the stone benches who tells her not to judge the woman too harshly. He says they call her the Stump, because she won't be blown by any storm. He tells her how to get on the Stump's good side, which Lift thinks is lame, as is the man's question that follows. She gives him what she thinks is a lame answer. He replies that it was an honest one.