"No," Miss Pamela agreed; "perhaps Molly will like to see Marigold. I have some shopping I wish to do this afternoon, so I will not bear you company any farther."
"Very well, Pamela. Now then, Marigold, we must go this way."
Marigold tripped along lightly by her Aunt Mary's side, her bright eyes noting all that came within their reach. They were evidently coming to a poorer part of the city, for the shops were much smaller, and presently they turned down a narrow back street.
"My district is here," Miss Holcroft explained. "It used to be a fashionable part of Exeter. Can you fancy that?"
Marigold noticed, to her surprise, that here and there were large, old-fashioned houses, evidently once of importance, but now, for the most part, neglected, and some even fallen to decay. Slatternly women and children hovered around the doors; and occasionally a face would brighten at the sight of Miss Holcroft, whilst she would pause to say a few pleasant words to a mother with a sickly-looking baby in her arms, and listen patiently to the tale of woe that said how the husband was out of work "on account of the drink, ma'am," and how the children had to be sent to school half-fed. Marigold had been accustomed to live amongst working people all her life, but they had been respectable mechanics and artisans, not those who, though of the working-class, did very little work at all. She had never been in contact with men who spent their days loafing at the corners of streets with their hands in their pockets, women gossiping and remarking on the passers-by, and little children so dirty that she instinctively drew away from them half in pity, half in disgust.
"Oh, Aunt Mary, what a miserable part this is!" she cried.
"Yes," Miss Holcroft acknowledged with a sigh, "it is one of the most wretched districts in Exeter. Strangers who visit our beautiful cathedral town little think that there are such miserable parts hidden away in the heart of the city!"
"Are the people who live here very wicked, Aunt Mary?"
"Some are, I fear,—fathers who spend the little money they earn in drink, and mothers who neglect their children and homes for the sake of the same vice. But, my dear, not all are bad. God has His faithful servants here, His jewels whose lustre no evil surroundings can dim, whose goodness but shines brighter in contrast to the sin around. You heard me say I was going to see Molly Jenkins? Well, she is a poor lame girl who makes Honiton lace for a livelihood. She cannot move without crutches, and rarely goes out except to take her work to the shop where she sells it, and yet she is one of the brightest souls I know!"
"Oh, I should like to see her work so much, Aunt Mary!" Marigold exclaimed, her tones full of eager interest, as her thoughts flew to her mother. The little girl's heart swelled at the remembrance. It seemed so unjust that she should be living in affluence whilst her dear mother was toiling hard to keep the home.