“Have you any work?” he asked. “Do you need help? Don’t mind telling us. My friend is to take charge of your church at the Mills.”
The girl interrupted him. She had turned miserably pale under Latimer’s question.
“’Tain’t no church of mine!” she said, passionately; “I h’ain’t nothin’ to do with it. I never belonged to no church anyhow, an’ I’m leadin’ the kind o’ life any girl’d lead that hadn’t nothin’ nor nobody. I don’t mean,” with a strangled sob, “to even myself with her; but what’ud she ha’ done if she’d ha’ slipped like I did—an’ then had nothin’ nor—nor nobody?”
“Don’t speak of her!” cried Latimer, almost fiercely.
“’Twon’t hurt her,” said the girl, struggling with a sob again; “she’s past bein’ hurt even by such as me—an’ I’m glad of it. She’s well out of it all!”
She turned as if she would have gone away, but Baird checked her.
“Wait a moment,” he said; “perhaps I can be of some service to you.”
“You can’t do nothin’,” she interrupted. “Nobody can’t!”
“Let me try,” he said; “take a note to Miss Starkweather from me and wait at the house for a few minutes. Come, that isn’t much, is it? You’ll do that much, I’m sure.”
She looked down at the floor a few seconds and then up at him. It had always been considered one of his recommendations that he was so unprofessional in his appearance.