"Look for yourself," she said.
Mrs. Church did look. She put on her spectacles and read the words, "The Wild Irish Girls, October, 18—."
"Whatever does this mean?" she said. "The Wild Irish Girls! It doesn't sound at all a respectable sort of name."
"I am one," said Susy, beginning to skip up and down. "I am a Wild Irish Girl."
"That you ain't. You don't know the meaning of the thing. You are nothing but a little, under-bred Cockney."
"Thank you, Aunt Church. I do feel obliged for your kind opinion of me. But now, are you going to help Miss Kathleen, or are you not? She can't have the girls—the Wild Irish Girls, I mean—any longer at the quarry, for it's getting noised abroad in the school, and there are those who'd think very little of telling on us; and then we might all be expelled, for it's contrary to the rules of the governors that there should be anything underhand or anything of that sort in the place. So it is this way: we have got into trouble, we Wild Irish Girls, and dear Miss Kathleen is determined that, come what will, the society must not suffer; and she thinks you could help. And if you help in any sort of fashion, why, she'll take precious good care that you get into one of those little almshouses. She said I was to see you to-day, and I was to take her back the answer. And now, will you help or will you not?"
"Well, I never!" said Mrs. Church.
When she had uttered these words she sank back in her chair. Her knitting was forgotten; her old face looked pale with anxiety.
"Have a cup of tea; it will help you to think more than anything," said Susy, and in a brisk and businesslike fashion she dived into the cupboard, took out the cups and saucers, a little box of biscuits, a tiny jug of milk, a caddy of tea, and proceeded to fill the little teapot. By-and-by tea was ready, and Susy brought a cup to the old lady.
"There, now," she said. "You see what it means to have a nice little girl like me to wait on you. You'd have taken an hour hobbling round all by yourself. Now what will you do?"