"And you're going to take a situation in a workhouse?"
"Who told you?" cried Mrs. Chester, her tears beginning to flow.
"Some distance from here it is, and you'll get eighteen pound a year. And you don't mind giving three-and-sixpence a week to anyone who'll take care of Sally."
"I don't know where you found out all this," sobbed Mrs. Chester, "but it's true. I've been trying all the morning to get a place for Sally--she's a handy little thing, Mr. Dumbrick--but can't find one. Everybody's full enough of trouble as it is, without wishing for more. I don't blame 'em, I'm sure, but I feel that desperate that I'm fit to make away with myself. Do you think I'd part with my child if I could possibly help it?"
"I never had one," replied Seth gravely, "so I'm no judge. Mrs. Chester, I'm a lonely man, and have lived a lonely life. You know me and what I am. I'm never out of work, and I never intend to be, if I can help it. I don't set myself up as a good man, but I dare say I'd pass in a crowd. Do you see what I'm driving at?"
"Not exactly, Mr. Dumbrick."
"I've felt sometimes lately, when I've been alone in my cellar, as if I'd like some one to talk to, some creature like myself about me to look at. I'd as soon set fire to my place as take a woman in it, and a boy'd plague the life out of me. But a little girl, or a little girl and a baby, I wouldn't so much mind. She could make herself handy, and might grow into my ways. Now do you see what I'm driving at?"
"You mean that you'd take Sally, and keep her, if I paid you three-and-sixpence a week."
"Partly right and partly wrong. I mean that I've no objections to take Sally and the little creature as seems to be cast upon the world without a friend, and give 'em both their meals and a bed. So far you're right. But you're not as to the three-and-sixpence a week."
"Would you want more, Mr. Dumbrick?" asked Mrs. Chester imploringly.