“It was my second place,” returned the girl, rather defiantly. “And it was a hard one. For it were a public, an’ the master, he drank, and the missus were dead, and there were six children. I might have been there till to-day,” she went on, “but I had to go into ’orspital, I were that worn out.”
What a life history if it were true! And what a terrible imagination if it were false! But why had the girl found it so hard to keep other places if she had so readily endured the slavery indicated in her words?
“I am afraid you will not suit me,” said Lucy, very gently. “I fear you have had no opportunity to get the experience and training I require.”
“I’ve always been in places, m’m,” answered the girl tartly. “If ten years o’ different places doesn’t give one experience, I don’t know what will!”
“Experience of changes,” said Lucy, “but not experience in work and in regular household ways.”
The girl looked in Lucy’s face and saw that her dismissal was decided.
“Oh, well, m’m, please yourself!” she said. “There’s plenty o’ places goin’ that’ll suit me, and I’d not care to stay long anywhere!”
“You did better this time, Sis,” whispered Florence Brand as the damsel flounced away. “But you must not be too particular. Don’t peep too closely behind their set scenes. If they tell you a lie decently, make believe to believe it. Then, if anything turns out wrong, why, you’ve been deceived, you know, and your credit is saved.”
Lucy scarcely heard what her sister said. The squalid horror of the lives opening before her sickened and suffocated her soul, just as the fetid atmosphere of the crowded room was sickening to her body.
“Poor girl, what chance has she enjoyed?” she said. “She had not a bad face. If I had not been fixed as I am, I might have given her a trial, and have helped her to be glad ‘to stay long somewhere.’ One couldn’t wonder that she wasn’t, if all she told is true.”