"She isn't in prison, sir," said Susie; "she's going to try and get some work in the market, for she wants to be honest."
"Well, there, you can go; I don't want to listen to your tales about a young thief," said the man.
"Oh, sir, won't you let me come and try to be your servant?" asked Susie anxiously.
"Well, if ever I heard such impudence as that!" exclaimed the grocer. "Do you think I'd have a thief to live in my house? Be off, or I'll send for the police to you and have you locked up, and you shan't get off so easily as the girl did yesterday."
Susie turned and went out of the shop with an almost breaking heart, and sitting down on a door-step near, she burst into tears. Her disappointment was the more keen and bitter because she had felt so sure of success; and when at last, chilled and benumbed with the cold, she turned back towards the main road, she had no heart to inquire anywhere else. Everybody would look upon her as a thief now, because she had been seen with Elfie and the policeman; and full of this thought, she turned into Fisher's Lane and went home.
At dinner-time, Elfie came back from the market to know how she had got on. She was not so surprised as Susie thought she would be, when she heard what had happened; but she hung her head with a sense of shame she had never felt before, when Susie told her how it was they would not even give her a trial.
"It's my fault," said Elfie. "O Susie, what shall I do?" And then she burst into tears.
"There, don't cry; it ain't worth crying about," said Susie, trying to speak cheerfully. "I will go out again presently, and perhaps somebody else will give me a trial."
"But they'll think you're a thief because you go with me," said Elfie sadly.
"Never mind, as long as I am not one really. God knows we are trying to be honest, and other people will be sure to know it too by-and-by.—What have you been doing, Elfie?" she asked, by way of turning the conversation.