w can I bear to leave her, and
what will her future be?"

The moans of the poor, tortured mother, whose life was fast ebbing away,
were most piteous.

"Now, Mis' Browning, don't take on so; chirk up a bit! She's plenty old
enough to work and make her own livin'. Of course you couldn't expect me
to say I'd keep her. Land sakes! Grandpa's all I can manage now, and
he's gittin' worse and more tryin' every day. Why, jest this mornin'
when I wuz that busy I didn't know what to do a-finishin' up that
sewin', what should he do but stumble ag'in the coal pail and upset the
whole thing right on the floor, and jest after I'd scrubbed, too! Then I
thought I'd git rid of him a few minutes by sendin' him to the grocery.
Of course I never trust him with a cent of money. They know him at the
corner grocery, so it's all right; but it all comes of my credit a-bein'
so good, that's the reason. Well, I told him it wuz not necessary fer
him to be gone but fifteen minutes, but when he wuz gone twenty, I had
to put my work down and go after him. I'd better have gone in the first
place. That's always the way when I trust him fer anything, it jest
makes it that much harder fer me in the end. I had to go clean down the
stairs, and in some way twisted my ankle, so I ain't got over it yet;
then I saw him a-comin', but that slow, it made me real provoked. If
he'd jest a-hurried up a little, it would have saved me all that
trouble. He said he wuz tired, but I think I wuz the one to be tired,
a-hurryin' down them steps so, and a-gittin' hurt, too.

"Land sakes, Mis' Browning, I'd think you could see I have my hands
more'n full now, though I don't wonder you would like to have Rosa
brought up by me. I could train her mighty well, so as she'd know how to
do somethin'. She's old enough to work, and I'll keep an eye on her and
correct her whenever she needs it, and that'll be often. I'd think you'd
ought to be satisfied with that. There ain't many that'd take sech an
interest in a homeless little waif, I can tell you.

"You eat your supper now, and I'll tell Rosa to come home. That's one
thing she'll have to quit, a-wastin' so much time. What she sees in
grandpa is more'n I can tell, fer he ain't got a bit of sense. Often in
the night he wakes me up a-hollerin' and a-carryin' on a-thinkin' he's a
boy ag'in. There's not many as patient as I am, or they wouldn't put up
with it."

Every word was a knife thrust through the sensitive, bleeding heart of