“Well, you’re a kind-hearted young lady,” said the housekeeper, “and I’ll do it gladly, miss; though the poor creature is hardly strong enough to do such hard work.”
“Then, don’t give it to her,” said Pinkie; “I don’t believe in oppressing people.”
“But she must work, you know, miss, to support her children.”
“Then, what are you talking about? Give her the work if she wants it, and pay her well. If she’s not strong enough, she can let it alone. I hope you see she has good meals whenever she is here!”
“Law, yes, miss; only she’s got so little appetite. She don’t eat enough for a baby. I believe all that keeps her up, anyhow, is determination. She looks like she could just lie down and die any minute.”
“Well, make her some beef-tea,” said Pinkie; “that will do her good. It is wrong for people to work beyond their strength, wrong and foolish too. I don’t see why they do it.”
“No, I suppose you don’t, when all the wish you’ve got is that you had something to wish for,” murmured the housekeeper, looking after her; while Pinkie, as she tripped along, thought complacently, “People talk about the difficulty of dealing with the laboring classes; but I don’t see any trouble in it at all, if you only know how!”
Arrived at her aunt’s, she found the doctor confined to his room by an access of rheumatism, and quite unable to see any one; so Pinkie, in spite of her Parisian toilette, bustled around to help the boy from “Prices” lay the cloth in the parlor, where meals were now usually taken, and made herself so sweet and charming during the tête-à-tête tea with her aunt that Alice’s sad face brightened perceptibly.
“You’re a good little thing, Pinkie,” she said tenderly. “I wish I had you always.”
“I’ll come and stay with you whenever you like,” said Pinkie, laying her cheek against her aunt’s shoulder; “but now run away to Uncle Fred, dearest; I know he wants you. I’ll just sit here and wait till some one comes for me.”