"So do I," said Mrs. Dale pleasantly. "If she comes to see you again, I should like to have a little chat with her."
"Yes, mum, thank you."
Ellen retreated in confusion; then she came back.
"If you please, mum, you won't let on to missus that I give you a letter from Peggy. Her might think it forward, and I telled Peggy it were."
Mrs. Dale promised, with a smile, that she would say nothing about it. Two days later she was walking out when she met Peggy with a basket of eggs on her arm.
Peggy smiled broadly, and Mrs. Dale stopped her.
"Thank you," she said, "for what you sent me the other day. I wonder what made you do it?"
"Oh, please 'm," was the breathless reply, "I knowed you would be glad to hear what would be good for yer 'eart. You did tell me 'm you had the 'eartache, didn't you? And I has set my mind all along to be like that there little captive maid in the Bible. Only she had a sick capting, and I can't find one nowheres. And there be no prophets nowadays—only doctors, and they don't seem certain sure of theirselves bein' able to cure everybody. So, please 'm, I were very down'earted, and then I were told by a missionary gent and my missus that some people didn't know where to go to get their souls or 'earts cured. And, please 'm, I thought I'd just like to tell 'em, and I hopes you'll be quite well in your 'eart soon 'm; I does indeed."
Her big blue eyes looked so earnest and confiding that Mrs. Dale felt she could not damp her ardour.
"Thank you, Peggy," she said. "You are the first person that I have ever met in my life that has cared for my soul."