"Is he bound to you?"
"Oh yes. I never take a boy without having him bound."
"What was his mother's name?"
"I believe they called her Mrs. Miller."
"Did you ever meet with her?"
"No: but my wife knew her very well. She was a strange kind of woman—feeling something above her condition, I should think. She was always low-spirited, my wife says, but never complained about any thing. Bill was her only child, and he used to go for her work, and carry it home when it was finished. She sent him out, too, to buy every thing. I don't believe she would have stirred beyond her own door if she had starved to death."
"Why not?"
"Pride, I reckon."
"Pride? Why should she be proud?"
"Dear knows! Maybe she once belonged to the bettermost class of people, and was afraid of meeting some of them in the street."