"Oh, they don't make 'em much artfuller nor me," said the poor girl rather proudly. It was a pitiful boast from one who had suffered such hardships, and who, after years of struggle, presented so lamentable an appearance. "I aint told yer all, though," she continued eagerly. "I don't keep no count of the days 'xcept with bits of sticks--one stick, Monday, two sticks, Tuesday, three sticks, Wednesday, up to six sticks, Satterday, and then I know to-morrer's Sunday, and I begin all over again. Weeks I don't know 'ow to reckon, and that's why I can't tell 'ow long Molly's been away. I dessay it was three months when a Satterday night come--not the last by a good many--and I got 'ome as 'ungry as 'ungry could be, and not a ha'penny to get grub with. So wot do I do but prowl about on the chance of finding somethink that 'll 'elp me on. Molly used to sleep in the basement, next to the kitching, and there's a cupboard in the room. Wot 'yer think I found in that there cupboard on the top shelf, that I 'ad to stand on two chairs to git to? A wooden money-box, sir, that rattled as I shook it up. There wos letters outside wrote large by Molly, 'For Barbara.' Yer might 'ave knocked me down with a feather when I sor it, and I did tumble off the chairs and 'urt myself, but I 'ad the money box in my 'and for all that. It wos locked, and there wos no key, but I soon prised it open, and there it was, 'arf full of coppers that Molly'd been saving up for me, else she wouldn't 'ave wrote 'For Barbara' outside. Wosn't that good of Molly, sir?"
"Indeed it was," I replied.
"I counted it out--six and tenpence, no less, sir, and I kissed the box, and the writing, and the money too, and I only wanted Molly alongside of me to make me as 'appy as the day's long. It lasted me a long while, that money did."
"Did you ever find any more?" I asked.
"No, sir, though I looked everywhere for it."
"Now, Barbara, can you tell me the name of the place your sister was going to with Mr. Nisbet and Miss Beatrice?"
"No, sir, she didn't know 'erself, she sed, but she promised to write to me--in large letters--directly she got there."
"Where did she say she would send the letter?'
"To the house that Mrs. Simpson lived in, sir."
"You remained in that house two weeks after Molly went away?"