anything you can?"

Jane was not sufficiently politic to enlarge on her desire for honest
toil and honest bread; she merely nodded. Holcroft smiled as he asked,
"Why are you so anxious to work?"

"'Cause I won't feel like a stray cat in the house then. I want to be
some'ers where I've a right to be."

"Wouldn't they let you work down at Lemuel Weeks'?" She shook her head.

"Why not?" he asked.

"They said I wasn't honest; they said they couldn't trust me with
things, 'cause when I was hungry I took things to eat."

"Was that the way you were treated at other places?"

"Mostly."

"Jane," asked Holcroft very kindly, "did anyone ever kiss you?"

"Mother used to 'fore people. It allus made me kinder sick."

Holcroft shook his head as if this child was a problem beyond him, and
for a time they sat together in silence. At last he arose and said,
"It's time to go home. Now, Jane, don't follow me; walk openly at my
side, and when you come to call me at any time, come openly, make a
noise, whistle or sing as a child ought. As long as you are with me,
never do anything on the sly, and we'll get along well enough."

She nodded and walked beside him. At last, as if emboldened by his
words, she broke out, "Say, if mother married you, you couldn't send us
away, could you?"

"Why do you ask such a question?" said Holcroft, frowning.

"I was a-thinkin'--"

"Well," he interrupted sternly, "never think or speak of such things
again."

The child had a miserable sense that she had angered him; she was also
satisfied that her mother's schemes would be futile, and she scarcely
spoke again that day.

Holcroft was more than angry; he was disgusted. That Mrs. Mumpson's
design upon him was so offensively open that even this ignorant child
understood it, and was expected to further it, caused such a strong
revulsion in his mind that he half resolved to put them both in his
market wagon on the morrow and take them back to their relatives. His
newly awakened sympathy for Jane quickly vanished. If the girl and her
mother had been repulsive from the first, they were now hideous, in
view of their efforts to fasten themselves upon him permanently.
Fancy, then, the climax in his feelings when, as they passed the house,
the front door suddenly opened and Mrs. Mumpson emerged with clasped
hands and the exclamation, "Oh, how touching! Just like father and
child!"

Without noticing the remark he said coldly as he passed, "J