“Oh, dear Miss Armitage, don’t be sorry when you have been so good. But I don’t quite understand how anyone can bind you out and make you stay years if you didn’t want to.”
“But children do not know what is best for them. Some go wandering round the streets without any home and are picked up and put in a place almost like a prison where they have to work whether they like it or not. And some 114 even have cruel fathers and mothers. You said the Bordens were good to you. Would you rather be there or at the Home?”
“Oh, I’d rather be there than at the Home, but––” and she swallowed hard over a sob.
“If they worked you beyond reason or half starved you a complaint could be made but they all seem to love you––”
Miss Armitage smiled with a soft kind of sadness, as if she wished the truth were not quite so true, and the things that looked so delightful were not so often the thing it was best to give up for honor’s sake.
“Yes, they do love me, babies and all, and of course I must go back when I am well enough.”
Then she turned her face away and tried to keep back the tears. Jane entered at that moment and the tension was broken.
Miss Armitage read verses to her after she was in bed that evening, and kissed her good night with motherly tenderness. Then she sat for some time and thought.
Why should she have taken a fancy to this little girl? She had seen prettier children who were homeless and helped provide for them. 115 The Bordens were not rough or heartless. Bridget had spoken well of them. The child had a comfortable home, and she was bound in honor. It would be mean to entice her to break the bargain, to make her dissatisfied. No, she must not do that.
Miss Armitage’s life lines had run along smoothly through girlhood. Her mother was a widow and they had a comfortable income. Hilda had a good voice and sang in church, gave some music lessons. There had been a lover and a dear friend and the old tragedy had occurred, that might have been more heartbreaking if her mother had not been taken ill. For days her recovery was doubtful. Then an uncle at Los Angeles besought her to come out to that genial clime and spend her remaining days with him, for now he was quite alone.