"'Yes, that's the question with a vengeance,' said Gerald. 'We can't leave her in this house in the care of a deaf old woman, to bear the brunt of the landlord's anger when he comes home and finds the birds flown and his arrears of rent the baddest of bad debts. Poor child! we must get her away somehow. Have you no friends in the country who would give you a home?' he asked the girl.
"'No,' she answered, fighting with her sobs. 'People were very kind to me just at first after my father's death; and then I think they got tired of me. They said I was helpless; I ought to have been able to put my hand to something useful. The only thing I cared for was music. I used to sing in the choir; but it was only a village church, and the choir were only paid a pound a quarter. I couldn't live upon that; and I couldn't play the organ well enough to take my father's place. And then Miss Grimshawe, a rich old lady, offered to apprentice me to a dressmaker; but I hated the idea of that. Dressmakers' girls are so common; and my father was a gentleman, though he was poor. When I told Miss Grimshawe I was going away with the Kaltarderns, she was very angry. She said I should end badly. Everybody was angry. I can never go back to them; they would all turn from me.'
"Mr. Ravenshaw looked suspicious; Mrs. Ravenshaw looked serious; and even I asked myself whether the girl's story, so plausible, so convincing to my awakened interest, might not, after all, be a tissue of romance, which sounded natural, because it had been recited so often.
"Gerald was the most business-like among us.
"'What is your name?' he asked.
"'Esperanza Campbell.'
"'Esperanza? Why, that's a Spanish name!'
"'My mother was a Spaniard.'
"'So! And what is the name of the village where your father played the organ?'
"'Besbery, near Petworth.'