"You be a queer little creature! Mr. Bennett, he says, 'Of course I'd a-gone and got a baby out,' he says, 'for a man feels that be worth it,' he says, 'but not the captain's papers, for they be only ink and paper, and not worth riskin' flesh and blood for. People,' he says, 'only laughs at you for doin' foolhardy things like that,' he says." "I don't think much of Mr. Bennett," said Peggy, tilting up her chin in her old fashion; "he speaks so shockin' of the missionaries and heathen. I s'pose 'twere the way he was brought up, but 'tis awful to hear him. He says he'd have gone into the fire to save a baby, but I knows he wouldn't if it had been a heathen. And a heathen is just as good as a baby, Lucy, every bit!" "I don't know much about 'em," confessed Lucy, "but me and Nesbitt do miss Mr. Bennett. He were such a cheerful young man!" Mrs. Creak came and wept over Peggy. "I feel as if you belongs to me, dearie, I do indeed; and I was that proud of your gettin' into good service. And now you be all thrown back, and I've worritted and worritted until it come to me what a wicked old woman I was, for the Almighty cares for His own, and He were not likely to forget you." "Should think not," said Peggy, with shining eyes; "why, I arsks Him about thousands of things, now I'm all day in bed. I'm afraid I bothers Him awful, but I arsks Him to take no notice of the things He don't approve of, and I tries and not arsks Him the same question twice over." As Peggy got better, she began to take a lively interest in her fellow-sufferers. A young woman in the next bed to her had been brought in with a broken leg. When she began to get better, she was very troubled about her home and little ones; an older woman on the other side of Peggy carried on a long conversation with her one afternoon, in which Peggy joined. "Take the rest while you can get it, my girl, and be thankful for it. Who's lookin' after the children?" "My husban's sister. She come up from Kent, and she's a clean, decent body, but I'm pinin' to ketch a sight o' my baby. He be only ten months old." "Then you've nought to worry over. Look at me. I'm thankin' my luck ev'ry day for my tumble downstairs and my shoulder bein' put out! Why, I'm close on forty, and I've reared and brought up fourteen children, and worked hard at washin' for other folks, and never all those years have I lain abed, and been waited on like this here! I'm a-enjoyin' the rest of it wonderful. "I've been to Margit on Bank 'Olidays, and to 'Ampstead 'Eath, but you're on the go all day with children a-tuggin' at yer, and havin' to watch yer man lest he got too fond o' his glasses. I never, all the twenty years o' my married life, have laid still and done nothin'. Why, 'tis like a little bit of 'eaven!" The speaker rested her head back on her pillow with a satisfied sigh. Peggy looked at her and smiled. "I s'pose God knewed you wanted a bit o' time to rest yerself, that's why you be here!"