"Well"—Sarah hesitated.
"Is she sick too?"
"No, she ain't sick; she has been."
"What then?"
"I don't feel as if I had no right to tell you, sir; you and Miss Matilda. I spoke before I thought enough about it. She ain't noways sick; but she has had some sort o' sickness that has made her fingers all crumple up, like; they have bent in so, and she can't straighten 'em out, not a bit; and if you take hold of 'em you can only pull 'em open a little bit. And it hurts her so to do her work, poor thing!"
"Do what work?"
"All her work, Miss Matilda—same as if her hands was good. She washes and irons her clothes and his, and cooks for him, and makes her room clean; but it takes her all day 'most; and sometimes, she says, she gets out o' heart and feels like sittin' down and givin' up; but she never does, leastways when I see her. I go in and make her bed when I can; that's what she hardly can do for herself."
"I should think not!" said Matilda.
"She can't lift her hands to her head to put up her hair; and she suffers a deal."
"Is she so very poor too, Sarah?"