unt earnestness. If any harm
came to Clara I should feel it every bit as much as you, and that you
ought to know by this time. All the same, what I've got to say is this:
Let her go to Mrs. Tubbs for a month's trial. If you persist in
refusing her, mark my words, you'll be sorry. I've thought it all over,
and I know what I'm talking about. The girl can't put up with the work
room any longer. It's ruining her health, for one thing, anybody can
see that, and it's making her so discontented, she'll soon get
reckless. I understand your feeling well enough, but I understand her
as well; at all events, I believe I do. She wants a change; she's
getting tired of her very life.'

'Very well,' cried the father in shrill irritation, 'why doesn't she
take the change that's offered to her? She's no need to go neither to
workroom nor to bar. There's a good home waiting for her, isn't there?
What's come to the girl? She used to go on as if she liked you well
enough.'

'A girl alters a deal between fifteen and seventeen,' Sidney replied,
forcing himself to speak with an air of calmness, of impartiality. 'She
wasn't old enough to know her own mind. I'm tired of plaguing her. I
feel ashamed to say another word to her, and that's the truth. She only
gets more and more set against me. If it's ever to come right, it'll
have to be by waiting; we won't talk about that any more. Think of her
quite apart from me, and what I've been hoping. She's seventeen years
old. You can't deal with a girl of that age like you can with Amy and
Annie. You'll have to trust her, Mr. Hewett. You'll have to, because
there's no help for it. We're working people, we are; we're the lower
orders; our girls have to go out and get their livings. We teach them
the best we can, and the devil knows they've got examples enough of
misery and ruin before their eyes to help them to keep straight. Rich
people can take care of their daughters as much as they like; they can
treat them like children till they're married; people of our kind can't
do that, and it has to be faced.'

John sat with dark brow, his eyes staring on vacancy.

'It's right what Sidney says, father,' put in Mrs. Hewett; 'we can't
help it.'

'You may perhaps have done harm when you meant only to do good,'
pursued Sidney. 'Always being so anxious, and showing what account you
make of her, perhaps you've led her to think a little too much of
herself. She knows other fathers don't go on in that way. And no