Emma always asks half-a-crown, and then comes down
to two shillings or eighteenpence," said Huldah, innocently.

"Who's Aunt Emma?"

Huldah hesitated a moment, somewhat at a loss how to explain.
"She isn't my real aunt, though I calls her so. She and Uncle Tom
ain't any relation to me really. They're called Smith, and my name
is Huldah Bate; but when mother died--"

"Haven't you got any mother?"

"No, ma'am, and father is dead too. He died when I was too little to
remember, and mother earned her living by making baskets, and when I
was big enough she taught me."

"How long ago did your mother die?" asked Mrs. Perry, more gently.

"Two years, ma'am, and when she died Aunt Emma and Uncle Tom said I
was to go and live with them. They said mother had said I was to."

"Um! Did your mother think so much of them, then?"

"No, ma'am. They was always too rough for mother, they drinks a lot,
and--and swears terrible, and they'm always fighting."

"I wonder at your mother leaving you to such people to be took care
of."

"I don't believe mother ever did," said Huldah, "she never told me
so, anyway," and she burst into bitter sobs; "but there wasn't
anybody else there, and they told the parish orf'cer that I was their
little girl, and then they went away as fast as they could, and took
me with them."

"Are they kind to you?"

"They beat me--they're always beating me, or Dick, or Charlie,--
Charlie is the old horse that draws the van,--and I'd sooner be
beaten myself than see them being knocked about. We don't ever get
enough to eat, but that isn't so bad as the beatings."

"Poor child! You both look as if you had never had enough to eat in
your lives. Did they make baskets too?"

"No, ma'am, they can't. They make clothes-pegs, and they sell
brushes and mats, but my baskets brought them in as much as a pound a
week sometimes, and oh!" and she gasped at the thought, "Uncle Tom
will be angry, when he finds I don't come back!" and her eyes were
full of terror as she thought of his passion.

Mrs. Perry disappeared into the little scullery behind the kitchen,
and opened the door of the safe where she kept her scanty store of
food. There was very little in it but a ham-bone, a few eggs, a loaf
of bread, and a tiny bit of butter. The bone she had, earlier in the
day, decided would make her some pea-soup for to-morrow's dinner, but
she thought of poor Dick and his hollow sides, and came to the
conclusion tha