"Lord, what a job!" said one sister; "she's just like so much lead in one's arms. But if we listened to them we should have them loafing here over a month more." Esther did not require much assistance, and the sister said, "Oh, you are as strong as they make 'em; you might have gone two days ago."
"You're no better than brutes," Esther muttered. Then, turning to the matron, she said, "You promised to get me a situation as wet-nurse."
"Yes, so I did, but the lady who I intended to recommend you to wrote this morning to say that she had suited herself."
"But do you think you could get me a situation as wet-nurse?" said the other woman; "it would save me from going to the workhouse."
"I really don't know what to do with you all; you all want to stop in the hospital at least a month, eating and drinking the best of everything, and then you want situations as wet-nurses at a pound a week."
"But," said Esther, indignantly, "I never should have given my sister two pounds if you had not told me you could get me the situation."
"I'm sorry," said the matron, "to have to send you away. I should like to have kept you, but really there is no help for it. As for the situation, I'll do the best I can. It is true that place I intended for you is filled up, but there will be another shortly, and you shall have the first. Give me your address. I shall not keep you long waiting, you can depend upon me. You are still very weak, I can see that. Would you like to have one of the nurses to walk round with you? You had better—you might fall and hurt the baby. My word, he is a fine boy."
"Yes, he is a beautiful boy; it will break my heart to part with him."
Some eight or nine poor girls stood outside, dressed alike in dingy garments. They were like half-dead flies trying to crawl through an October afternoon; and with their babies and a keen wind blowing, they found it difficult to hold on their hats.
"It do catch you a bit rough, coming out of them 'ot rooms," said a woman standing by her. "I'm that weak I can 'ardly carry my baby. I dunno 'ow I shall get as far as the Edgware Road. I take my 'bus there. Are you going that way?"