"And you thought it would be good times, did you, to go off twenty miles into the country, to live alone with an old woman like me?"
Miss Henderson's tone softened kindly to the rough, uncouth girl, and encouraged her to confidence.
"Well, you see, mum, I should like to go where things is green and pleasant. I lived in the country once—ever so long ago—when I was a little girl."
Miss Henderson could not help a smile that was half amused, and wholly pitiful, as she looked in the face of this creature of fourteen, so strange and earnest, with its outline of fuzzy, cropped hair, and heard her talk of "ever so long ago."
"Are you strong?"
"Yes'm. I ain't never sick."
"And willing to work?"
"Yes'm. Jest as much as I know how."
"And want to learn more?"
"Yes'm. I don't know as I'd know enough hardly, to begin, though."