‘Harold is not gone yet,’ said Mrs. King soothingly; ‘we’ll wait till he comes in from his work, and see how you are, when you’ve had a little sleep. Don’t cry; you aren’t going just yet.’
That same earnest questioning glance, but with more hope in it, was turned on her again; but she did not dare to bind herself, much as she longed to take the wanderer to her home. She went on to her son’s room.
‘Mother, Mother,’ Alfred cried in a whisper, so eager that it made him cough, ‘you can’t never send him to the workhouse?’
‘I can’t bear the thought, Alfy,’ she said, the tears in her eyes; ‘but I don’t know what to do. It’s not the trouble. That I’d take with all my heart, but it is hard enough to live, and—’
‘I’m sure,’ said Ellen, coming close, that her undertone might be heard, ‘Harold and I would never mind how much we were pinched.’
‘And I could go without—some things,’ began Alfred.
‘And then,’ went on the mother, ‘you see, if we got straitened, and Matilda found it out, she’d want to help, and I can’t have her savings touched; and yet I can’t bear to let that poor lad be sent off, so ill as he is, and after all he’s done for Harold—such a good boy, too, and one that’s so thankful for a common kind word.’
‘O Mother, keep him!’ said Alfred; ‘don’t you know how the Psalm says, “God careth for the stranger, and provideth for the fatherless and the widow”?’
Mrs. King almost smiled. ‘Yes, Alf, I think it would be trusting God’s word; but then there’s my duty to you.’
‘You’ve not sent Harold off for the cart?’ said Alfred.