I was alone then: mother was dead, and father was gone, 'n' th' Lord thought 't was time to see to me,--special as th' overseer was gettin' me an enter to th' poor-house.
So He sent Mr.Holmes along.

Then it come right!" Margret did not speak.

Even this mill-girl could talk of him, pray for him; but she never must take his name on her lips! "He got th' cart fur me, 'n' this blessed old donkey, 'n' my room.

Did yoh ever see my room, Miss Marg'et ?" Her face lighted suddenly with its peculiar childlike smile.
"No?
Yoh'll come some day, surely?
It's a pore place, yoh'll think; but it's got th' air,--th' air." She stopped to breathe the cold morning wind, as if she thought to find in its fierce freshness the life and brains she had lost.
"Ther' 's places in them alleys 'n' dark holes, Miss Marg'et, like th' openin's to hell, with th' thick smells 'n' th' sights yoh'd see." She went back with a terrible clinging pity to the Gehenna from which she had escaped.

The ill of life was real enough to her,--a hungry devil down in those alleys and dens.