f our own, we both of us
knew that a workhouse was no fit place for her. Her gown was very dusty,
and one of her boots was burst, and her hair was draggled all over her
face, and her eyes was sunk in her head, like; but we saw somehow that
she was a lady--or, if she wasn't exactly a lady, that no workhouse was
proper for her, at any rate. I stooped down to speak to her; but her
baby was crying so dreadful she could hardly hear me. 'Is the poor thing
ill?' says I. 'Starving,' says she, in such a desperate, fierce way,
that it gave me a turn. 'Is that your child?' says I, a bit frightened
about how she'd answer me. 'Yes,' she says in quite a new voice, very
soft and sorrowful, and bending her face away from me over the child.
'Then why don't you suckle it?' says I. She looks up at me, and then at
Jenny and shakes her head, and says nothing. I give my baby to Jemmy
to hold, and went and sat down by her. He walked away a little; and I
whispered to her again, 'Why don't you suckle it?' and she whispered to
me, 'My milk's all dried up. I couldn't wait to hear no more till I'd
got her baby at my own breast.

"That was the first time I suckled little Mary, ma'am. She wasn't
a month old then, and oh, so weak and small! such a mite of a baby
compared to mine!

"You may be sure, sir, that I asked the young woman lots of questions,
while I was sitting side by side with her. She stared at me with a dazed
look in her face, seemingly quite stupefied by weariness or grief,
or both together. Sometimes she give me an answer and sometimes she
wouldn't. She was very secret. She wouldn't say where she come from, or
who her friends were, or what her name was. She said she should never
have name or home or friends again. I just quietly stole a look down at
her left hand, and saw that there was no wedding-ring on her finger, and
guessed what she meant. 'Does the father know you are wandering about in
this way?' says I. She flushes up directly; 'No;' says she, 'he doesn't
know where I am. He never had any love for me, and he has no pity for
me now. God's curse on him wherever he goes!'--'Oh, hush! hush!' says
I, 'don't talk like that!' 'Why do you ask me questions?' says she more
fiercely than ever. 'What business have you to ask me questions that
make me mad?' 'I've only got one more to bother you with,' says I, quite
cool; 'and that is, haven't you got any money at all with you?' You see,
ma'am, now I'd got her child at my own bosom, I didn'