ut he couldn't keep it, and he went off I don't
know where, and Eve had the children to keep and look after. We used to
do what we could to help her, but it was a cruel life for a poor thing
of her age--just when she ought to have been enjoying her life, as you
may say."

Hilliard's interest waxed.

"Then," pursued Mrs. Brewer, "the next sister to Eve, Laura her name
was, went to Birmingham, into a sweetstuff shop, and that was the last
ever seen or heard of her. She wasn't a girl to be depended upon, and I
never thought she'd come to good, and whether she's alive or dead
there's no knowing. Eve took it to heart, that she did. And not six
months after, the other girl had the 'sipelas, and she died, and just
as they was carrying her coffin out of the house, who should come up
but her father! He'd been away for nearly two years, just sending a
little money now and then, and he didn't even know the girl had been
ailing. And when he saw the coffin, it took him so that he fell down
just like a dead man. You wouldn't have thought it, but there's no
knowing what goes on in people's minds. Well, if you'll believe it,
from that day he was so changed we didn't seem to know him. He turned
quite religious, and went regular to chapel, and has done ever since;
and he wouldn't touch a drop of anything, tempt him who might. It was a
case of conversion, if ever there was one.

"So there remained only Eve and her brother?"

"Yes. He was a steady lad, Tom Madeley, and never gave his sister much
trouble. He earns his thirty shillings a week now. Well, and soon after
she saw her father going on all right, Eve left home. I don't wonder at
it; it wasn't to be expected she could forgive him for all the harm and
sorrows he'd caused. She went to Birmingham for a few months, and then
she came back one day to tell us she'd got a place in London. And she
brought that photo to give us to remember her by. But, as I said, it
isn't good enough."

"Does she seem to be happier now?"

"She hasn't wrote more than once or twice, but she's doing well, and
whatever happens she's not the one to complain. It's a blessing she's
always had her health. No doubt she's made friends in London, but we
haven't heard about them. Martha was hoping she'd have come for
Christmas, but it seems she couldn't get away for long enough from
business. I'd tell you her address, but I don't remember it. I've never
been in London myself. Martha knows it, of course. She might