“Ay,” said Liz, “she's done nowt else but fret lately. I dunnot know what ails her.”
She was in Joan's arms by this time, and Joan stood looking at the puny face.
“She is na well,” she said in a low voice. “She has pain as we know nowt on, poor little lass. We conna help her, or bear it fur her. We would if we could, little un,”—as if she forgot Liz's presence.
“Joan,” Liz faltered, “what if yo' were to lose her?”
“I hope I shanna. I hope I shanna.”
“Yo' could na bear it?”
“Theer is na mich as we conna bear.”
“That's true enow,” said Liz. “I wish foak could dee o' trouble.”
“Theer's more nor yo' has wished th' same,” Joan answered.
She thought afterward of the girl's words and remembered how she looked when she uttered them,—her piteous eyes resting on the embers, her weak little mouth quivering, her small hands at work,—but when she heard them, she only recognized in them a new touch of the old petulance to which she had become used.