“Nowheres. I ain’t got nobody,” she added, with a smile, “to take me nowheres.”
“What do you do then?”
“I’ve plenty to do mending of Charley’s trousers. You see they’re only shoddy, and as fast as I patch ’em in one place they’re out in another.”
“But you oughtn’t to work Sundays.”
“I have heard tell of people as say you oughtn’t to work of a Sunday; but where’s the differ when you’ve got a brother to look after? He ain’t got no mother.”
“But you’re breaking the fourth commandment; and you know where people go that do that. You believe in hell, I suppose.”
“I always thought that was a bad word.”
“To be sure! But it’s where you’ll go if you break the Sabbath.”
“Oh, sir!” she said, bursting into tears, “I don’t care what become of me if I could only save that boy.”
“What do you mean by saving him?”
“Keep him out of prison, to be sure. I shouldn’t mind the workus myself, if I could get him into a place.”
A place was her heaven, a prison her hell. Stephen looked at her more attentively. No one who merely glanced at her could help seeing her eyes first, and no one who regarded them could help thinking her nice-looking at least, all in a shabby cotton dress and black shawl as she was. It was only the “penury and pine” that kept her from being beautiful. Her features were both regular and delicate, with an anxious mystery about