Edith instantly sat down again, and the footman went and stood by the girl, looking down at her curiously. Then he stooped, took off his glove, and put the points of the four fingers of his right hand on her chest, like an amateur doctor afraid of soiling his hands, a perfunctory way of ascertaining if she still breathed.
"I know who it is, ma'am," he said, returning to the carriage. "She's French, and was a dressmaker in Morning-quest. There were two of them, sisters, doing a very good business, but they got to know some of the gentry—"
Mrs. Beale stopped him. She would not have heard the story for the world.
"She's not dead, is she?" Edith asked in a horrified tone.
The man looked at the girl again from where he stood; "No, miss," he answered, "I think not. She's dead beat after a long tramp. The soles are wore off her shoes. Or likely she's fainted. It's a pity of her," he added for the relief of his own feelings, looking at her again compassionately.
"Oh, mother! can't we do something?" Edith exclaimed.
"But what can we do?" Mrs. Beale responded helplessly, looking at
Edwards for a suggestion.
"We're not very far from the workus," he said, looking down the road they had just retraversed. "We might call there as we pass, and leave a message for them to send and take her in."
"Let us go at once," said Mrs. Beale in a tone of relief.
Edith, whose face was pale, looked pityingly once more at the girl and her little child as they drove off. It had not occurred to either of the two ladies, gentle, tender, and good as they were, to take the poor dusty disgraced tramp into their carriage, and restore her to "life and use and name and fame" as they might have done.