This is what comes, Rosanna, of thinking on an empty
stomach!" I spoke severely, being naturally indignant (at my time of
life) to hear a young woman of five-and-twenty talking about her latter
end!
She didn't seem to hear me: she put her hand on my shoulder, and kept me
where I was, sitting by her side.
"I think the place has laid a spell on me," she said. "I dream of it
night after night; I think of it when I sit stitching at my work. You
know I am grateful, Mr. Betteredge--you know I try to deserve your
kindness, and my lady's confidence in me. But I wonder sometimes whether
the life here is too quiet and too good for such a woman as I am, after
all I have gone through, Mr. Betteredge--after all I have gone through.
It's more lonely to me to be among the other servants, knowing I am not
what they are, than it is to be here. My lady doesn't know, the matron
at the reformatory doesn't know, what a dreadful reproach honest people
are in themselves to a woman like me. Don't scold me, there's a dear
good man. I do my work, don't I? Please not to tell my lady I am
discontented--I am not. My mind's unquiet, sometimes, that's all." She
snatched her hand off my shoulder, and suddenly pointed down to the
quicksand.
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