“Well, you see, miss,” replied Mrs. Baldwin, “we’re not in the way of having to do with such people, for my husband’s rather particular about whom he rents the top rooms to. But, rent them we must, for times is hard an’ children is many, an’ it’s all as we can do to pay our own way, only thank God we’ve done it up to this present. An’ this man looked so decent, as well as the woman, but pitiful-like, that I didn’t have the heart to send them away on such a drizzly, cold night as it was. They had four children with them, the smallest o’ them ridin’ pickaback on the biggest—an’ it always goes straight to yer heart, to see one human being lookin’ after another like that. But my husband, as was natural, he bein’ a householder, was reluctant about the children. For children, you know, miss, ‘cept they be yer own, ain’t nice things about a house. An’ them poor things wouldn’t be a credit nowheres, for they were ragged enough—only they were pretty clean, as children go, an’ there was nothing, as I said to him, in the top-rooms, as they could do much harm to. The man said theirs weren’t like other children, for they had been brought up to do things as they were told, an’ to remember that things belongin’ to other people was to be handled as such. An’, he said, they were always too busy earnin’ their bread to be up to tricks, an’ in fact were always too tired to have much spare powder to let off. So the long an’ the short of it was we took ‘em in, an’ they’ve turned out as quiet an’ well-behaved a family as you could desire. An’ if they ain’t got just the most respectable way o’ earnin’ their livin’, that may be as much their misfortune as their fault, as my husband said.”

“What is their employment, then?” asked Hester.

“Somethin’ or other in the circus way, as far as I can make out from what they tell me. Anyway, they didn’t seem to have no engagement when they come to the door, but they paid the first week down afore they entered. You see, miss, the poor woman she give me a kind of look up into the face that reminded me of my Susie, as I lost, you know, miss, a year ago—it was that as made me feel to hate the thought of sendin’ her away, an’ she was plainly in no condition to go wanderin’ about, but I hardly knew how far her condition was. An’ the very next day the doctor had to be sent for, an’ there was a baby! The doctor come from the hospital, as nice a gentleman as you’d wish to see, miss, an’ waited on her as if she’d been the first duchess in the land. ‘I’m sure,’ said my good husband to me, ‘it’s a lesson to all of us to see how he do look after her as’ll never pay him a penny for the care he’s taking of her!’ But my husband he’s that soft-hearted, miss, where anything in the baby-line’s a goin’ on! Now the poor mother’s not at all strong, an’ ain’t gettin’ back her strength, though we do what we can with her an’ send her up what we can spare. You see, they pay for their house-room, an’ then ain’t got much over,” added the woman in excuse of her goodness. “They’re not out o’ money yet quite, I’m glad to say, though he don’t seem to have got nothing to do yet, so far as I can make out. That sort o’ trade, ye see, miss, the demand’s not steady in it. It’s not like skilled labour, as my husband says—though to see what them young ones has to go through, it’s labour enough. Would you mind goin’ up an’ havin’ a look at her, miss?”