“That little girl comes here with a message from your wife?”
“Yes; if she nods three times it means my wife is a little better.”
“She nodded thrice to-day.”
“But she is told to do that to relieve me, and maybe those nods don’t tell the truth.”
“Is she your girl?”
“No; we have none but the baby. She is a neighbour’s; she comes twice a day.”
“It is heartless of her parents not to send her every hour.”
“But she is six years old,” he said, “and has a house and two sisters to look after in the daytime, and a dinner to cook. Gentlefolk don’t understand.”
“I suppose you live in some low part, William.”
“Off Drury Lane,” he answered, flushing; “but—but it isn’t low. You see, we were never used to anything better, and I mind when I let her see the house before we were married, she—she a sort of cried because she was so proud of it. That was eight years ago, and now—she’s afeard she’ll die when I’m away at my work.”