Miss Julie was quite determined not to let this child vanish. She resolutely stopped the stout woman as she was leaving.
“You won’t make her pose any more, will you?” she said, entreating.
“I’m a poor woman,” said the mother, “and I have to do the best I can.”
“But it’s——”
“It’s fifty cents an hour, Miss, that’s what it is. And I need the money that bad.”
“I’ll find something better for her to do,” said Miss Julie, rashly. “If you’ll give me your name and address, I’ll find something much better. Only—she mustn’t do this. It’s not right, feeling as she does.”
“Only Saturdays and after school,” said the mother. “I do the best I can for her, but ’tis not very much, where there are six and me a widow. She goes regular to the Sisters’ school, and she is doing fine there. She’s not twelve yet and——”
“She’s very small for that age,” said Miss Julie.
“She is small,” her mother agreed, “and childish-like for her age. But she’s smart. Last Christmas didn’t they give her a prize—a book with poetry in it—for elocution.”
Miss Julie had wished to regard this mother as a brute, a fiend; she had not enough experience or subtlety to comprehend lights and shades. Everyone must be good or bad, and no shilly-shallying. So she regarded this note of pride in the woman’s voice as hypocrisy.