"You have seen me there," said the street-sweeper. "'Most days I'm there."
"I have been past that corner a good many times, Sarah, when I couldn't see you anywhere."
"'Cos the streets was clean. There warn't no use for my broom then. Nobody'd ha' wanted it, or me. I'd ha' been took up, maybe."
"What do you do then, Sarah?"
"Some days I does nothing; some days I gets something to sell, and then I does that."
"But I would like to know where you live."
"You wouldn't like it, I guess, if you saw it. Best not," said Sarah. "They wouldn't let you come to such a place, and they hadn't ought to. I'd like to see you at my crossing," she added with a smile as she moved off. Matilda, quite lost in wonderment, stood looking after her as she went slowly down the aisle. Her clothes were scarcely whole, yet put on with an evident attempt at tidiness; her bonnet was not a bonnet, but the unshapely and discoloured remains of what had once had the distinction. Her dress was scarcely clean; yet as evidently there was an effort to be as neat as circumstances permitted. What sort of a home could it be, where so nice a girl as Matilda believed this one was, could reach no more actual and outward nicety in her appearance?
"You have made Sarah Staples' acquaintance, I see;" Mr. Wharncliffe's voice broke her meditations.
"I saw her at her crossing one day. Isn't she a good girl?"
"She is a good girl, I think. What do you think?"