The fact was that the poor girl worked well, and did not "shirk" labour; and the woman knew that it was the interest of her master to retain that young creature's services.
Those words, "Do you not want any more work?" reminded Ellen that she and her father must live—that they could not starve! She accordingly turned towards that uncouth female once more, and received another shawl, to embroider in the same manner, and at the same price!
Eighty blossoms for sixpence!
Sixteen hours' work for sixpence!!
A farthing and a half per hour!!!
The young girl returned to the dirty court in Golden Lane, after purchasing some food, coarse and cheap, on her way home.
On the ground-floor of a house in the same court dwelt an old woman—one of those old women who are the moral sewers of great towns—the sinks towards which flow all the impurities of the human passions. One of those abominable hags was she who dishonour the sanctity of old age. She had hideous wrinkles upon her face; and as she stretched out her huge, dry, and bony hand, and tapped the young girl upon the shoulder, as the latter hurried past her door, the very touch seemed to chill the maiden even through her clothes.
Ellen turned abruptly round, and shuddered—she scarcely knew why—when she found herself confronting that old hag by the dim lustre of the lights which shone through the windows in the narrow court.
That old woman, who was the widow of crime, assumed as pleasant an aspect as her horrible countenance would allow her to put on, and addressed the timid maiden in a strain which the latter scarcely comprehended. All that Ellen could understand was that the old woman suspected how hardly she toiled and how badly she was paid, and offered to point out a more pleasant and profitable mode of earning money.
Without precisely knowing why, Ellen shrank from the contact of that hideous old hag, and trembled at the words which issued from the crone's mouth.