“My dear Hazel,” said Mrs Thorne from the kitchen, where she was seated at the evening meal, “what are you going to do?”
“Good, if I can, mother,” said Hazel simply, and she filled a cup and took it out to the half-fainting woman, who looked her thanks, for she could not speak for some minutes.
“There, miss, and God bless you for it,” she said, handing back the cup. “I felt I must come and tell you, miss, for—for it seems as if she couldn’t die till you had been.”
“Does she ask for me so?” said Hazel.
“She asks for nothing else, miss. It’s always ‘I want teacher,’ and—and I thought miss—if you’d come to the house—if it was only to stand on the other side of the road—the window’s open, miss, and she could hear you, and if you was just to say, ‘I’m here, Feelier!’ or, ‘go to sleep, there’s a good girl!’ it would quiet her like, and then she’d be able to die.”
“Oh, pray don’t speak like that!” cried Hazel. “Let us hope that she will live.”
“I don’t know what for, miss,” said the wretched woman despondently. “Only to live to have a master who’d beat and ill-use her, and make her slave to keep his bairns. I did think I’d like her to live, but the Lord knows best and He’s going to take her away.”
“I’ll come on and see her,” said Hazel quietly. “Poor child! I was in hopes that she was going to amend. Wait for me here till I get my hat, and I will come.”
“What are you going to do, my dear?” exclaimed Mrs Thorne as Hazel passed through the room.
“I am going to see one of my children, mother,” she replied quietly.