"You Maggie Skinner! Well, I never!"
"Yes, I have had a great deal of trouble; but it is over now."
"Sit down; sit down," Uncle Bobo said, pushing a high round stool with a slippery leather top, the only seat for which the shop could afford room. "Sit ye down; but surely you look too old to be Maggie Skinner!"
"I have had many troubles. Oh! Mr. Boyd, can you forgive me? When my darling child was a baby, I wanted bread. My husband died just when she was eighteen months old; I had not a shilling in the world; there was only the workhouse before me, and I could not—no, I could not take my precious child there. So I walked here from Ipswich. I remembered you had a kind heart—so I laid her here on your door-step and stood watching till you came and took her up, and I knew you would be good to her; but I dared not face my mother. I wandered alone all that night; and early in the morning, before any one was stirring, I came to look up at this house. As I stood listening, I heard my baby's little cough. Some one was crooning over her and playing with her."
"That was Susan. Hi, Sue! come this way," exclaimed Mr. Boyd.
Susan came blundering down the stairs, asking—
"What do you want? I was just giving the precious child her breakfast. She seems a bit brighter this morning."
"What is the matter with her?" Maggie Chanter asked. "Is she ill? is she ill?"
"She was knocked down by a runaway horse last June, and hurt her back. What do you know about the child?"
"I am her mother?" was the answer. "Oh! I thank you all for being kind to her." And then a burst of passionate tears choked the poor mother.