"Eat it!"
She brushed the dust off it with her hand, tore it apart with her fingers, and put it in her mouth.
"Bridget, don't ever take any more, and secrete it without my knowledge."
"No, ma'am; and you wont report me now."
"I gave you the meat. How can I report you?"
"Thank you!"
"If you are ever so hungry, don't you put any away for yourself without asking me!"
"No, ma'am!"
Perhaps she will not. The fear of punishment, in a solitary cell, had not deterred her from taking the meat. Perhaps pity for her fellow-prisoners would not; nor the desire to please me.
That evening I heard the Matrons discussing the music by the quartette choir in the chapel of the prison.