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MacDonald, George, 1824-1905

"Weighed and Wanting"

An' I'm sure it's not lettin' lodgin's to sich I ever
thought I should come to--though, for the matter o' that, I never could
rightly understand what made one thing respectable an' another not."
"What is their employment then?" asked Hester.
"Something 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 a 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 sending her
away. Oh, miss, ain't it a mercy everybody ain't so like your own! We'd
have to ruin ourselves for them--we couldn't help it!"
"It will come to that one day, though," said Hester to herself, "and
then we sha'n't he ruined either."
"So then!" Mrs. Baldwin went on, "the very next day as was, the doctor
had to be sent for, an' there was a babby! The doctor he come from the
'ospital, 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.


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