This was the beginning of Father John's friendship with Giles and Sue.
The next day Sue, by dint of many and anxious inquiries, found him out, and put her queer little unkempt head into his room.
"Ef yer please, parson, may I speak to yer 'bout Giles and me?"
"Certainly, my little girl. Sit down and tell me what I can do for you."
"Parson," said Sue, with much entreaty in her voice and many a pucker on her brow, "what I wants to say is a good deal. I wants ter take care o' Giles, to keep up the bit o' home and the bit o' victual. It 'ud kill Giles ef he wor to be took to the work'us; and I promised mother as I'd keep 'im. Mother wor allers a-trustin', and she trusted Giles ter me."
Here Sue's voice broke off into a sob, and she put up her dirty apron to her eyes.
"Don't cry, my dear," answered Atkins kindly; "you must not break your word to your mother. Will it cost you so much money to keep yourself and Giles in that little attic?"
"It ain't that," said she, proudly. "It ain't a bit as I can't work, fur I can, real smart at 'chinery needlework. I gets plenty to do, too, but that 'ere landlady, she ain't a bit like mother; she'd trusten nobody, and she up this morning, and mother scarce cold, and says as she'd not let her room to Giles and me 'cept we could get some un to go security fur the rent; and we has no un as 'ud go security, so we must go away the day as mother is buried, and Giles must go to the work'us; and it 'ull kill Giles, and mother won't trust me no more."
"Don't think that, my child; nothing can shake your mother's trust where God has taken her now. But do you want me to help you?"
Sue found the color mounting to her little, weather-beaten face. A fear suddenly occurred to her that she had been audacious—that this man was a stranger, that her request was too great for her to ask. But something in the kindness of the eyes looking straight into hers brought sudden sunshine to her heart and courage to her resolve. With a burst, one word toppling over the other, out came the whole truth: