me upon him suddenly, from a by-path among some
pollard willows which terminated in the little shelving piece of stony
ground that lay between his dwelling and the water, where he was bending
over a fire he had made to caulk the old boat which was lying bottom
upwards, close by, he raised his head at the sound of her footstep, and
gave her Good morning.

'Good morning,' said Florence, approaching nearer, 'you are at work
early.'

'I'd be glad to be often at work earlier, Miss, if I had work to do.'

'Is it so hard to get?' asked Florence.

'I find it so,' replied the man.

Florence glanced to where the girl was sitting, drawn together, with her
elbows on her knees, and her chin on her hands, and said:

'Is that your daughter?'

He raised his head quickly, and looking towards the girl with a
brightened face, nodded to her, and said 'Yes,' Florence looked towards
her too, and gave her a kind salutation; the girl muttered something in
return, ungraciously and sullenly.

'Is she in want of employment also?' said Florence.

The man shook his head. 'No, Miss,' he said. 'I work for both,'

'Are there only you two, then?' inquired Florence.

'Only us two,' said the man. 'Her mother his been dead these ten year.
Martha!' lifted up his head again, and whistled to her) 'won't you say a
word to the pretty young lady?'

The girl made an impatient gesture with her cowering shoulders, and
turned her head another way. Ugly, misshapen, peevish, ill-conditioned,
ragged, dirty--but beloved! Oh yes! Florence had seen her father's look
towards her, and she knew whose look it had no likeness to.

'I'm afraid she's worse this morning, my poor girl!' said the man,
suspending his work, and contemplating his ill-favoured child, with a
compassion that was the more tender for being rougher.

'She is ill, then!' said Florence.

The man drew a deep sigh 'I don't believe my Martha's had five short
days' good health,' he answered, looking at her still, 'in as many long
years.'

'Ay! and more than that, John,' said a neighbour, who had come down to
help him with the boat.

'More than that, you say, do you?' cried the other, pushing back his
battered hat, and drawing his hand across his forehead. 'Very like. It
seems a long, long time.'

'And the more the time,' pursued the neighbour, 'the more you've
favoured and humoured her, John, till she's got to be a burden to
herself, and everybody else.'

'Not to me,' said her father, fa