'Poor dear, poor dear! Come, my dear, talk kindly to an old woman who might be your grandmother. Ay, I might, my dear. I'm seventy-one come the 10th of November, and I'm waiting for my daughter. You've got a long time before you, my dear, before you come to my age.'
'Seventy-one!' exclaims the girl, 'I shall never be seventy-one. I shouldn't like to be. What's your daughter in for? How old is she? She must be older than me.'
'She's thirty, my dear, and she's in for begging. What's yours in for?'
'My what in for?' sharply and sullenly.
'Your friend. You needn't be so sharp with an old woman like me. You may be a mother yourself one day, poor dear!'
The girl turns with a gasp--it may be of joy or pain--and takes the old woman's hand and begs her pardon.
Her friend is in for worse than beggin', the girl says, and relapses into silence, retaining the old woman's hand in hers, however, for a little while.
Many persons pass this way and that, but few bestow a second glance upon the group; and even if pity enters the heart of one and another, it does not take practical shape, and in its passive aspect it is, as is well known, but cold charity. One man, however, lingers in passing, walks a few steps, and hesitates. He has caught a glimpse of a face that he recognises, and it is evident that he is distressed by it. He turns boldly, and pauses before the forms of the old woman and the girl.
'Blade-o'-Grass!' he exclaims.
She raises her head, and looks him in the face. No shame, no fear, no consciousness of degradation, is in her gaze. She drops him a curtsey, and turns her face towards the prison doors.