The girl’s face paled and flushed; and then quivered suddenly into a storm of tears.
“_I_ don’t like it here. But I can’t help it. I lost my place in the shop. I was late, and they discharged me. And I was afraid to go home and tell my aunt, she jaws at me so. That was four weeks ago. It was the third place I’d lost. So I--came here. I don’t like it. I was just crying when you came in!” She squeezed her handkerchief into a damp ball and pressed it against her eyes, sobbing. “The woman is so cross. And--and I owe her for board.”
“But there ain’t anything I can do; I’d die rather than go back to my aunt’s. She’d never forgive me. I don’t blame her. But _I_ don’t like it here.”
“Perhaps your aunt will forgive you?” Sara said gently. Nellie rocked back and forth, sobbing.
“I’m too wicked,” she recited; her eyes roved over Sara’s dark dress, and inspected her pretty little bonnet, and dwelt on the glitter of an amethyst pin at her throat. “Oh, dear, I wish I hadn’t; I wish I was dead,” she said helplessly.
Sara Wharton’s face lit with a quick tenderness. She put her arm over the child’s bent shoulders, and drew the wet cheek down against her breast. “My dear, if you are sorry, if you know that it is wicked and dreadful, then the worst is over. Don’t wish to die--wish to live, so that you may be good. I know you _can_ be good!” she ended, with a burst of courage in her voice, that struck some answering chord in the poor, half-developed little soul at her side. Nellie looked up.
“Oh, I will be good--if I can; just get out of here! I’m just about sick, anyway; I’ve got such a pain under my left shoulder; and I’m just tired of it--and Mrs. Smith is so cross. But I can’t go home. My aunt’ll jaw at me. Oh, I can’t ever go home!” She whimpered a little, and looked at her pretty finger nails critically.
“I’m _sure_ your aunt will forgive you!” Sara said, impetuous and tender. “Let’s go and ask her to, now.”
“Mrs. Smith won’t let me go, I guess,” Nellie sighed; “I owe her two weeks board.”
“I’ll come to-morrow,” the child demurred.
“Nellie, dear, I want you to come now! Oh, Nellie, won’t you begin this minute to be good?”
“I’m not so very bad,” Nellie protested, “and I can’t come now, truly. I haven’t any sack. I--sold it.” The tears welled up in her soft eyes at the remembrance of her poverty.