Esther did not answer, but judging by her face that she had lost all hope,
Mrs. Spires was tempted to continue.
“There’s that other baby in the far corner, that was brought ‘ere since you was ‘ere by a servant-girl like yerself. She’s out a’nursing of a lady’s child, getting a pound a week, just as you was; well, now I asks ‘ow she can ‘ope to bring up that ‘ere child—a weakly little thing that wants the doctor and all sorts of looking after. If that child was to live it would be the ruin of that girl’s life. Don’t yer ‘ear what I’m saying?”
“Yes, I hear,” said Esther, speaking like one in a dream; “don’t she care for her baby, then?”
“She used to care for them, but if they had all lived I should like to know where she’d be. There ‘as been five of them—that’s the fifth—so, instead of t
