'Oh dear! that sounds a very long way!' said Rosalie.
'Who wants to go there, my dear?' asked the old woman.
'I want to go,' said Rosalie sorrowfully.
'You want to go, child? Why, who are you going with? and how are you going?
You're surely not going to walk?'
'Yes, I am,' said Rosalie. 'Thank you, ma'am; I must walk as fast as I can.'
'Why, you don't look fit to go, I'm sure!' said the old woman; 'such a poor little weakly thing as you look! Whatever is your mother about, to let you go?'
'I haven't got a mother!' said Rosalie, bursting into tears; 'she's dead, is my mother. I haven't got a mother any more.'
'Don't cry, my poor lamb!' said the old woman, wiping her eyes with her apron. 'Popsey hasn't got a mother neither—her mother's dead; she lives with us, does Popsey. Maybe your grandmother lives in Pendleton; does she?'
'No,' said Rosalie; 'I'm going to my mother's sister, who lives in a village near Pendleton. I was to have gone to the workhouse to-day, but I think perhaps she'll take care of me, if I only can get there.'
'Poor lamb!' said the old woman; 'what a way you have to go! Have you had your breakfast yet? You look fit to faint.'