“So he told me. If you leave it here I will see that he gets it.”
“Well,” said the Judge, “to come back to my affair. I don’t want to keep this little girl. I want to find a good home for her, where her sensitive nature will be taken into account. I thought perhaps you would know of such a home.”
“Does she want to leave you?” asked Mrs. Everest, quickly.
“Well, no,” said the Judge, honestly, “I don’t think she does, neither did she want to leave Mrs. Tingsby to come to me. Children are fickle.”
The pretty girl-woman shook her head. “Mrs. Tingsby’s was different. The child had been brought up to believe that some day she would know something better. You should have seen her mother. She was an exquisite creature. Pale, and cold, and quiet, and shy, and aristocratic, and making friends only with Mrs. Tingsby. I, in vain, tried to get acquainted with her.”
“Did you know that Mrs. Tingsby allowed the child to work at making paper boxes?” asked the Judge.
“No,” said Mrs. Everest, quickly. “She would not dare to have that get to my ears. Do you know this to be true?”
“Yes; the child was staggering home when I found her.”
Mrs. Everest clasped her baby closer to her. “O, these poor people, aren’t they extraordinary! Now, that woman’s false pride won’t allow me to help her, and yet she lets this poor child work—and her own, too, I daresay, for she would not require of one what she would not require of the others.”
“I understood her to say that they all had work of some kind through the Christmas holidays. Can you in any way get at the employers of this child labor?”