"Yes, sir. Many a time when she has turned her back,—gone into the infirmary, or been reading to the old people,—I have got her pillow and dried it. And I have seen her do it herself, with a smile on her face all the time."
The Commissioner walked away. Before he left the place, the woman Smith was beckoned out by the governor. She went with a beating heart, with some wild idea in her head that the Morells had sent, that some friends had turned up. While still in the passage, however, she said to herself that she might as well look to see her parents risen from the dead.
The Commissioner had, indeed, nothing to tell. He wanted to ask. He did ask, as much as his delicacy would allow. But he learned nothing; except, indeed, what he ought to have considered the most important thing, the state of her mind about being there. About that, she was frank enough. She said over again to him what she had said to herself, about this being the right place for one in her circumstances. She considered that it would be an abuse of private charity for her to be maintained in idleness at an expense which might set forward in life some person in a less hopeless position.
"You speak cheerfully, as if you were in earnest," said the Commissioner.
"Of course, I am in earnest," she replied.
And cheerful she remained throughout the conversation. Only once the Commissioner saw her eyes filled and a quiver on her lips. He did not know it; but he had unconsciously called her "Madam."
Would she prefer the children's department of the House? There was no doubt that she could teach them much. Would she change her quarters? No. She was too old now for that. She should not be a good companion now for children; and they would be too much for her. Unless she was wanted—
By no means. She should be where she preferred to be.
She preferred to be where she was. The Commissioner's lady soon after dropped in, and managed to engage Smith in conversation. But there was no result; because Smith did not choose that there should be. Perhaps she was more in the infirmary; and had oftener a warm seat by the fire, and was spoken to with more deference. But this might be solely owing to the way she made with the people by her own acts and manners. The invalids and the infirm grew so fond of her that they poured out to her all their complaints. She was favored with the knowledge of every painful sensation as it passed, and every uneasy thought as it arose.
"I never thought to die in such a place as this," groaned old Johnny Jacks.