“That is all past now, madam,” said Lally softly.
“To begin again when Laura Blight chooses to send you packing! She’s full of caprices, is Laura. You’re not sure of a place here over night, unless her interest bids her keep you. How much money have you laid up?”
“Mrs. Blight advanced me five pounds, my first quarter’s salary, and I have eighteen shillings remaining,” answered Lally.
“Humph. Eighteen shillings between you and the union. Look me in the eye, Lally.”
The young girl obeyed, looking into Mrs. Wroat’s piercing eyes with a steady, honest, unflinching gaze, although the color fluttered in and out of her cheeks, as a bird flutters in and out of its cage.
“Have you ever done anything in your life of which you are ashamed?” asked the old lady, in a low, sternly anxious voice.
“No, ma’am,” answered the girl truthfully, “I never have.”
“What do you think of her, Peters?” demanded Mrs. Wroat, turning to her maid and confidant.
The woman was crying behind her handkerchief. She had hard features, but her heart was warm and soft. She answered sobbingly:
“I think, ma’am, as you’d ought to take her and adopt her, and make her your heiress—that’s what I think, poor, pretty dear!”