“It may come yet,” said Aunt Briscoe.
“And meantime, what are we to do?” I asked. “Who is to support the girl?”
“That is for you to settle,” Aunt Briscoe said coolly. “The matter is in your own hands, and of course you are quite at liberty to say you won’t support her. Nobody can force you. Maimie, do you call her? What could make anybody give a child such a name?”
“'Mary’ is her real name. I don’t see that the matter is in our hands at all,” I said feverishly. “If we didn’t keep the girl, who would?”
“The Parish,” Aunt Briscoe said quite composedly. And that meant, in plain terms, that she herself was not going to help.
“The workhouse!” my husband said, in a very low voice.
“There’s the parish,” Aunt Briscoe answered again.
And I knew he was thinking, as was I, of the pretty delicate face and shining flaxen hair. The workhouse for Maimie!
“That is impossible!” I said, and my voice sounded fretful even to myself. “But we certainly cannot afford to keep Maimie.”