'Oh, you've come for her, eh? These boys, Thomas and Charles, who have been absent for three weeks, are your brothers, I suppose?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Well, my dear, they ought to come, you know. What's the reason?'
'Please, sir, they're at work.'
'But they've not passed the Fourth Standard.'
'I know, sir; but they've got a job, and it's four shillings a week each, and that's all I've got to keep us.'
'All you've got, my dear? Where's your father?'
The girl colours a little and hesitates. The School Board officer steps forward to the table and helps her.
'It's a very painful case, sir,' he says. 'The father's been living with another woman—left his family. A fortnight ago the mother met him and asked him for some money. He knocked her down, and she fell and cut her head open. She's in St. Thomas's Hospital—not expected to live. The man was taken up, and he's under remand now, and this girl has to look after the entire family.'
'I see,' says the chairman; 'and Thomas and Charles are giving you their money, eh? and that's all you've got?'