"I intend sending the child to school after Easter," he said, "but till then she can help you, Maria. I suppose you can dust a room, can't you, Mousey?"
"Oh, yes, Cousin Robert," the little girl replied eagerly. "And I can light fires, and clean boots, and knives and forks, and trim lamps."
Mr. Harding nodded approvingly, and remarked—
"I am glad your mother brought you up to be useful. Be a good girl, and you'll do."
So Mousey spent the day with Maria, the time passing happily enough. She found the pale-faced woman very ready to listen to her chatter, and told her all about her mother's illness and death.
"So you dreaded the thought of coming here?" Maria said, after Mousey had given her a lengthy account of Aunt Eliza, Uncle Dick, and the cousins, and explained how she had hoped to make her home with them.
"Yes," Mousey acknowledged, "I did not want to come, but Aunt Eliza thought I ought. It's dreadful to be poor, isn't it?"
"I think it is sometimes; but there are worse things than poverty to be met with in this world."
"Mother was poor," Mousey said musingly, "but we were happy, although she had to work hard; and the lodgers were often dreadfully particular. Have you lived long with Cousin Robert, Maria?"
"A good while," Maria replied; "nigh upon twenty years. I never cared for changing places, or I don't think I should have stayed here longer than the first month—after that, I got accustomed to it."