The girl began to cry again, and the woman to scold her loudly. "Just so ungrateful people are," she said; "when I have promised to find a place where you can live at service, and earn money to buy a new gown, you must needs whimper about the old body that's well enough in her grave."
"Perhaps the poor child is lonely," said Peter, who had a kind heart under his rough coat, and knew, besides, from his own experience, what a hard thing it is to live with no one to love us and be grateful for our care.
she put the girl's hand into his.
The girl looked up at Peter with her pale, sad face; but her lips trembled so that she could not thank him. And he began to think how this poor beggar must have a gentle and loving heart, because she had taken such good care of her old mother, and, notwithstanding she was so troublesome, had been grieved at losing her.
So he made bold to ask once more what he had been refused so many times that day, and had never thought to ask again, whether she would marry him, and live in his little cabin, and cook his meals, and keep his fires burning, and smile and comfort him when he should come home tired from his work.