"You did pay yours; but I never got the letter, for I came away after Aunty died. You see I wasn't her own niece,—only sort of a distant relation; and she took me because my own people were gone. Her son had all she left,—it wasn't much; and she told him to be good to me. But I soon saw that I was a burden, and couldn't bear to stay. So I went away, to take care of myself. I liked it at first; but this winter, times are so hard and work so scarce, I don't get on at all."
"What do you do, miss?" asked Whittington, with added respect; because in her shabby dress and altered face he read the story of a struggle Letty was too proud to tell.
"I sew," she answered briefly, smoothing out her wet shawl with a hand so thin and small it was pathetic to see, when one remembered that nothing but a needle in those slender fingers kept want and sin at bay.
The kindly fellow seemed to feel that; and, as his eye went from his own strong right arm to the sledge-hammer it often swung, the instinct of protection so keen in manly men made him long to stand between poor Letty and the hard world he knew so well. The magnetism of sympathy irresistibly attracted iron to steel, while little needle felt assured that big hammer would be able to beat down many of the obstacles which now seemed insurmountable, if she only dared to ask for aid. But help came without the asking.
"Been after work, you say? Why, we could give you heaps of it, if you don't mind it's being coarse and plain. This sort of thing, you know," touching his red shirt with a business-like air. "Our men use 'em altogether, and like 'em strong in the seams. Some ain't, and buttons fly off just looking at 'em. That makes a fellow mad, and swearing comes easy."
But Letty shook her head, though she couldn't help smiling at his sober way of explaining the case and its sad consequences.
"I've tried that work, and it doesn't pay. Six cents for a shirt, and sometimes only four, isn't enough to earn one's board and clothes and fire, even if one made half a dozen a day. You can't get them for that, and somebody grows rich while we starve.
"Hanged if I ever buy another! See here, you make me enough for a year, and we'll have a fair bargain between us. That is, if you can't do better and don't mind," he added, suddenly abating his warmth and looking almost bashful over the well-meant proposal.
"I'd love to do it. Only you mustn't pay too much," said Letty, glad of any thing to keep her hands and thoughts busy, for life was very bare and cold just then.
"All right. I'll see to it directly, and nobody be the wiser," returned her new employer, privately resolving to order a bale of red flannel on the morrow, and pay fabulous prices for the work of the little friend who had once kept him from worse than starvation.