As they rode into Mapleton village, they met a man of whom Mrs. Harding ventured to inquire.
"Oh, there is girls enough," he replied, cheerfully. "You've just come by a house where there are three."
"How far back is it?" asked Mrs. Harding, eagerly.
"Oh, a mile or so. You can see it from here, just beyond that hemlock grove," said the man, pointing back.
Dobbin was again turned, and put in rapid motion towards the house. There she found a great corpulent woman knitting quietly by the window; but the girls were nowhere to be seen. Mrs. Harding stated her errand briefly, but earnestly.
"My gals are gone," said the woman, coldly. "One's gone to Lowell, and t'other went yesterday to work at the Meadows."
"Have you not another that would go?"
"No," was the gruff reply of the woman, who did not even deign to look up.
"It's just so everywhere," said Walter, as he caught the hopeless expression of his mother's face when she came out. "They are all just gone or going, or else 'ain't obleeged to work out.' I wish some of them had to."
"Oh no, that is wrong, Wally. I would not have a domestic unless it would be for her interest to serve me as well as for mine. But I do believe these uncultivated girls sometimes stand very much in their own light in refusing to go where they might be learning something valuable, and be really improving themselves, as well as helping those who need."