"'What, wear an apron and cap and wait upon the lodgers?' I said, laughing at the absurdity of the idea. She seemed a creature so far removed from the useful race of neat-handed Phyllises.
"'I should not mind.'
"The clock in the hall struck six, and I had promised Gerald to be ready for dinner at half-past, as we were to go to a theatre afterwards—the Adelphi, where Jefferson was acting in Rip Van Winkle. I had to take a hurried leave.
"'Don't you worry yourself about her, Mr. George,' said Martha, as she let me out at the street door; ' I'll keep her as long as ever you like.'
"I told Martha that I should send her a little money from time to time, and that I should consider myself in her debt for a pound a week as long as Miss Campbell stayed with her.
"'She'll want a new frock, won't she?' I asked. 'The one she wears looks very shabby.'
"'It looks what it is, Mr. George. It's all but threadbare, and it's the only frock she has in the world, poor child! But don't you trouble about that either. You gave me two sovereigns. One of those will buy the stuff, and she and I can make the frock. I've cut out plenty of frocks in my day. I used to make all your mother's frocks once upon a time.'
"In the bloom of her youth she had nursed my mother; she had nursed me in her sturdy middle life; and now in her old age she was ready and willing to care for this girl for whose fate I had made myself responsible.
"Gerald received me with his customary cheeriness, though I was ten minutes after the half-hour, and the fried sole had frizzled itself to dryness by that delay.
"'I've some good news for you!' he exclaimed, in his exuberant way. 'It's all right.'