"Nobody much; the neighbours go in a bit, and I do what I can."
"Has she no one belonging to her?"
"She has a daughter, but she's married and away—a pretty girl too. She went to this school, and she was a good hand at learning, so I believe; they made her a pupil teacher, and her mother wasn't half proud of her. But she went to be a teacher up in the North-country somewhere, and she got married there, and now I'm told that her and her husband have gone abroad—and except Carrie, I don't believe poor old Mother Hotchkiss has anybody else belonging to her."
"It's a funny name," said Marjorie.
"You're right there, Miss; it's a gipsy name. There are a lot of Hotchkisses about here; there's one street in Wolverhampton full of them. This old body has gipsy blood in her, if I'm not mistaken; she looks like it, anyhow."
The next day Marjorie fulfilled her promise to Enoch, and knocked at the door of the house in the lane. The old woman came to open it, with a red shawl over her head.
"Mrs. Hotchkiss," said Marjorie, "I've brought you a few flowers that came this morning from my home in the country."
"Are they for me?" said the old woman, stretching out her hand eagerly for the moss rosebuds and mignonette. "Come in, Miss. I've seen you pass; you're Holtby's girl, arn't you?"
"Yes," said Marjorie, smiling to herself at her new name, "and Enoch told me you were not well."
"I'm very ill, Miss—awful bad, getting worse every day, that's what I am."