nly thing in the world that makes me forget myself."
"Forget yourself!" says I. "You have no right to talk in that way, at
your age. There's something horrible in the notion of a girl of eighteen
sleeping with a bottle of laudanum by her bedside every night. We all of
us have our troubles. Haven't I got mine?"
"You can do twice the work I can, twice as well as me," says Mary. "You
are never scolded and rated at for awkwardness with your needle, and I
always am. You can pay for your room every week, and I am three weeks in
debt for mine."
"A little more practice," says I, "and a little more courage, and you
will soon do better. You have got all your life before you--"
"I wish I was at the end of it," says she, breaking in. "I am alone in
the world, and my life's no good to me."
"You ought to be ashamed of yourself for saying so," says I. "Haven't
you got me for a friend? Didn't I take a fancy to you when first you
left your step-mother and came to lodge in this house? And haven't I
been sisters with you ever since? Suppose you are alone in the world, am
I much better off? I'm an orphan like you. I've almost as many things
in pawn as you; and, if your pockets are empty, mine have only got
ninepence in them, to last me for all the rest of the week."
"Your father and mother were honest people," says Mary, obstinately. "My
mother ran away from home, and died in a hospital. My father was always
drunk, and always beating me. My step-mother is as good as dead, for all
she cares about me. My only brother is thousands of miles away in fore
ign parts, and never writes to me, and never helps me with a farthing.
My sweetheart--"
She stopped, and the red flew into her face. I knew, if she went on that
way, she would only get to the saddest part of her sad story, and give
both herself and me unnecessary pain.
"_My_ sweetheart is too poor to marry me, Mary," I said, "so I'm not
so much to be envied even there. But let's give over disputing which is
worst off. Lie down in bed, and let me tuck you up. I'll put a stitch or
two into that work of yours while you go to sleep."
Instead of doing what I told her, she burst out crying (being very like
a child in some of her ways), and hugged me so tight round the neck that
she quite hurt me. I let her go on till she had worn herself out,
and was obliged to lie down. Even then, her last few words before she
dropped off to sleep were such as I was half sorry, half frightened to
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