iter!" 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.

The horrid, lying, carneying old woman of the cottage received home
truths instead of tea and sugar from Mavis Dale, who, with all her
maternal feelings aroused, rushed off straightway to hunt for the
neglectful father. She found him at the Barradine Arms, and demanded
his permission to take away the child. Veale, although sadly bemused,
at once said that he could refuse nothing to the wife of his
preserver.

"Oh, lor-a-mussy, yes, mum, you may 'aave my little Norrer an' do what
you like wi' her. Bless her heart, I look on Norrer and her brothers
to be the comfort o' my old age, but I wunt stan' in their light to
interfere wi' what's best for any of 'em."

Mavis then took Norah straight home with her to Vine-Pits, bathed her,
fed her, clothed her, and made much of her. And Norah proved grateful,
docile, amenable, doing all that Mrs. Dale told her to do; and from
the first exhibiting an almost superstitiou