"I'm goin' to tell you something. Jim told me the other day; he wouldn't mind my tellin' you, but he says he don't want anny wan of the fam'ly to get wind of it."
"What is it?" Aileen looked up half fearfully.
"Gracious, you look as if you'd seen a ghost! 'T isn't annything so rale dreadful, but it gives you a kind of onaisy feelin' round your heart."
"What is it? Tell me quick." She spoke again peremptorily in order to cover her fear. Maggie looked at her wonderingly, and thought to herself that Aileen had changed beyond her knowledge.
"There was a man Jim knew in the other quarries we was at, who got put into that same prison for two years—for breakin' an' enterin'—an' Jim see him not long ago; an' when Jim told him where he was workin' the man said just before he was comin' out, Mr. Googe come in, an' he see him breakin' stones wid a prison gang—rale toughs; think of that, an' he a gentleman born! Jim said that was tough; he says it's back-breakin' work; that quarryin' an' cuttin' ain't nothin' to that—ten hours a day, too. My heart's like to break for Mrs. Googe. I think of it ivery time I see her now; an' just look how she's workin' her fingers to the bone to support herself widout help! Mrs. Caukins says she's got seventeen mealers among the quarrymen now, an' there'll be more next spring. What do you s'pose her son would say to that?"
She pressed her own boy a little more closely to her breast; the young mother's heart was stirred within her. "Mrs. Caukins says Mrs. Champney could help her an' save her lots, but she won't; she's no mind to."
"I don't believe Mrs. Googe would accept any help from Mrs. Champney—and I don't blame her, either. I'd rather starve than be beholden to her!" The blood rushed into the face bent over the muslin.
"Why don't you lave her, Aileen? I would—the stingy old screw!"
Aileen folded her work and laid it aside before she answered.
"I am going soon, Maggie; I've stood it about as many years as I can—"