"Fer shaame, I d' zay," said the kindly woman; "what would your mother zay, ef she 'eerd 'ee?"
"Haven't got a mother."
"Yer vather, then?"
"No father either," said Leicester. "If he were alive I'm inclined to think he'd say, 'Die, and have done with it.'"
"But you've got brothers, or sisters, or a wife, or a sweetheart?" She said this not so much for the sake of proving that he was in the wrong, but because, like the rest of her sex, especially those who live in lonely places, she desired to know something about this stranger.
Leicester shook his head.
"Well, you be in a bad way."
"Exactly," said Leicester, "I am." He yielded to a sudden impulse. "Now I put it to you, ma'am," he said, "suppose you had no friends, no one who cared for you; suppose you found the world a dirty sort of place, and found no pleasure in living, what would you do?"
"Do! I shud git somebody that ded care for me."
"I've tried, but failed."