“Now, Jim, dear, yer mustn’t be ‘ard on ‘er; she could tell a very different story if she wished it, but yer know what she is. There she sits like a block of marble, and won’t as much as say a word in ‘er own defence.”
“But I don’t want ‘er to speak. I don’t care, it’s nothing to me; I only laughed because—”
“Jim, dear, it is something to all of us. What we thought was that you might let her stop ‘ere till her time was come to go to the ‘orspital.”
“Ah, that’s it, is it? That was the meaning of the ‘alf-pound of steak and the pint of porter, was it. I thought there was something hup. So she wants to stop ‘ere, do she? As if there wasn’t enough already! Well, I be blowed if she do! A nice thing, too; a girl can’t go away to service without coming back to her respectable ‘ome in trouble—i
