“Nella! But where is she gone! Sit down and take breath, Mrs. Corder.”
The landlady dropped panting into the nearest chair.
“Now, tell me quietly all about it, Mrs. Corder.”
“She’s gone! She’s off! that’s all about it.”
“‘Gone,’ ‘off,’ you said that before; but why has she gone?”
“’Cause she’s crazy; ’cause she’s frightened o’ the parish officers, blame ’em, and o’ the union, and o’ being bound out, or else o’ being a burden to me!”
“But where, then, has she gone!”
“To her ruin, I’m afeard! To seek her fortin’, she says.”
“But in what direction?”
“Lord knows! I don’t, if she does herself. This comes all along o’ having no home and no mother, and being brought up in a barrack, with no one but a tipsy father to look after her. Here, Miss Miller; here’s her letter. I haven’t more than just looked over it. And to go off without her breakfast, too, before any of us was up! But here’s her letter, Miss Miller; it is intended for you as well as for me, for see it is directed—‘To my good friends!’ Read it out loud, please, and then, maybe, I may understand it better, for I never was a good hand at making out writing.”