"My name is Ellen," replied the girl.
"I call her Nelly," her father answered, "and she is a good girl. Will you sit down, Miss Kennedy?"
Angela sat down and proceeded to business. She said, addressing the old man, but looking at the child, that she was setting up a dressmaker's shop; that she had hopes of support, even from the West End, where she had friends; that she was prepared to pay the proper wages, with certain other advantages, of which more would be said later on; and that, if Captain Sorensen approved, she would engage his daughter from that day.
"I have only been out as an improver as yet," said Nelly. "But if you will really try me as a dressmaker—O father, it is sixteen shillings a week!"
Angela's heart smote her. A poor sixteen shillings a week! And this girl was delighted at the chance of getting so much.
"What do you say, Captain Sorensen? Do you want references, as Mr. Bunker did? I am the granddaughter of a man who was born here and made—a little—money here, which he left to me. Will you let her come to me?"
"You are the first person," said Captain Sorensen, "who ever, in this place, where work is not so plentiful as hands, offered work as if taking it was a favor to you."
"I want good girls—and nice girls," said Angela. "I want a house where we shall all be friends."
The old sailor shook his head.