"Yes, I do think there are some now that like me for myself--not many, but just one or two, besides dear old Mr. Bates."
"Everybody does. Why, look at that child, Norah. Only been here a month, and worships the ground you tread on."
"Poor little mite. That's her notion of being grateful for what I did for her father. Does she eat just the same?"
"Ravenous."
"Don't stint her," said Dale, impressively. "Feed her ad lib. Give her all she'll swallow. It's the leeway she's got to make up;" and he turned his eyes toward the kitchen door. "Is she out there?"
"Yes."
"I spoke loud. You don't think she heard what I said?"
"Oh, no. She's busy with Mrs. Goudie."
"I wouldn't like for her to hear us discussing her victuals as though she was an animal."
"You might have thought she was verily an animal," said Mavis, "if you'd seen her at the first meals we set before her. And even now it brings a lump into my throat to watch her."
"Just so."
"When I told her to undress that night to wash herself, she was a sight to break one's heart. Her poor little ribs were almost sticking through the skin; and, Will, I thought of one of ours ever being treated so."
Dale got up from the table, his face glowing redly, his brows frowning; and he stretched his arms to their full length.
"By Jupiter!" he said thickly, "if only Mrs. Neath had been a man, I'd 'a' given him--well, at the least, I'd 'a' given him a piece of my mind. I'd have told him what I thought of him."
"I promise you," said Mavis, "that I told Mrs. Neath what I thought of her."
"An' I'm right glad you did."
This new inmate under their roof was Norah Veale, a twelve-year-old daughter of the Hadleigh Wood hurdle-maker. Mavis, taking a present of tea and sugar to one of the Cross Roads cottages, had found her digging in the garden, and, struck by her pitiful aspect, had questioned her and elicited her history. It was a common enough one in those parts. Not being wanted at home, she had been "lent" to Mrs. Neath, the cottage woman, in exchange for her keep, and was mercilessly used by the borrower. She rose at dawn, worked as the regular household drudge till within an hour of school-time, then walked into Rodchurch for the day's schooling with a piece of dry bread in her pocket as dinner; and on her return from school worked again till late at night. She admitted that she felt always hungry, always tired, always miserable; that she suffered from cold at night in her wretched little bed; and that Mrs. Neath often beat her. She was a bright, intelligent child, black-haired, olive-complexioned, with lively blue eyes which expressed at once the natural trustfulness of youth, a certain boldness and wildness derived from gipsy ancestors, and a questioning wonder that this pleasant-looking world should be systematically ill-treating her.