“Your Mother.
“Tell Nat as I ’as my eye on ’im, and according as he deals with you, according will I think on him.”
Poll left the letter open on the top of the bureau; then she went back for a moment into the inner room.
Jill was lying fast asleep. Poll bent over her with a long, hungry gaze. She stooped her head, and lightly, very lightly, kissed the young girl on her forehead.
“Mother,” murmured Jill in her sleep; “oh, poor mother! oh, poor mother!”
A look of pain came over her face; she turned away with a profound and even careworn sigh.
“My gel!” responded Poll. “Oh, yes, it’s best and right for me to go.”
Instead of dressing herself in her usual picturesque fashion, with a coloured apron and gay turban, Poll put on a grey shawl, and a dowdy, old-fashioned bonnet of rusty black lace. She tied up her other clothes in a big handkerchief, and without again glancing at her daughter left the room.
A moment later she was in the street. She had not troubled herself to give the boys a farewell look. In the intense pain of the other parting she had forgotten their very existence.
A few moments after she had left the house, the clock from the neighbouring church struck four. Jill often awoke at four o’clock, but this morning she slept on, quite oblivious of the passing of time.