"Ah, if I had the power," said Brown, answering Eliza's appealing look with a mournful shake of the head; "but the madame will never give her up."
"She must," said Caroline, kindling with desperate opposition: "I am not her slave. God does not give up the soul and conscience of a child to her mother."
"Especially one who never did a thing for her child, but left her for others to bring up," broke in Eliza, uttering a bitter truth, in her angry pity for the girl. "Mr. Brown, all that I have got to say is this: you and I must stand by this young cretur, let her do what she will. She is more our child than hers. I stand by that. If she don't want to put on this splendiferous dress again, why it shall not come within a rod of her. If her heart is set against singing on the stage, we are not the people to see her dragged there against her will. You stand by me, I'll stand by you, and we'll roll ourselves like a rock in that woman's way, if she attempts to force our child into the theatre again."
"But how can we oppose her? She has the power. We have not, at this moment, five pounds among us."
Eliza's face fell as if it had been suddenly unlocked.
"No more we have, and in a strange country, too," she said, dolefully.
Here Caroline joined in.
"But I can teach. If I please all those people, surely I can teach."
"Sure enough!" said Eliza, brightening a little. "What do you say to that, Mr. Brown?"
"We must take time. Perhaps there will be no cause for trouble. When it comes in earnest, you shall not fight alone, Eliza. So comfort yourself, my child. The old man would rather beg for bread on the highway than see you forced to anything that is so distasteful. Now try and sleep."