Posey’s face clouded with dismay. She had trusted implicitly to Ben. What should she do if his plan for her failed? Mrs. Blossom saw the look. “What is your name?” she asked. “Posey.” “And whose Posey?” Mrs. Patience questioned looking up from her work with a gentle smile. “Nobody’s,” was the mournful answer. “And where is your home?” continued Mrs. Blossom. “Nowhere,” answered Posey, a great sense of her forlornness rushing over her and filling her eyes with tears. “Now, see here,” Miss Silence’s tone was brisk and incisive; “you want to tell the truth. Everybody has a surname and lives somewhere.” “I have told the truth,” protested Posey hotly. “I haven’t anybody or any home anywhere.” “But where have you been living?” Now Posey had gathered from Ben Pancost’s manner that while he personally approved of her running away from Mrs. Hagood, he was doubtful of the impression it might make on others, and she had resolved to be very discreet and tell as little of that part of her story as possible. But her indignation at the implication of untruthfulness overmastered her prudence and she answered, “If you want to know where I’ve lived I can tell you. I’ve lived with a clairvoyant medium, and I’ve lived at the Refuge in Cleveland, and the last place I’ve lived was with a Mrs. Hagood in Horsham.” “Why, Horsham is twenty miles from here.” “I wish it was twenty million miles.” “But why?” “Because,” her voice rising shrill with passion, “Mrs. Hagood was horrid to me, and I ran away from her, I did; and I don’t care who knows it, I don’t; and I’ll never go back to her for anybody, never,” her cheeks flushing and her eyes flashing through her tears. “In what way was Mrs. Hagood horrid to you?” questioned Mrs. Blossom. For answer Posey tore open her collar and rolled up her sleeves showing the marks still visible on her neck and arms. It needed now hardly an inquiry to bring out the whole story, in which she omitted neither what she had said to Mrs. Hagood nor the bite she had given her hand. “And I’ll starve and die before I’ll go back to her,” she added in conclusion. “It’s a burning shame to treat a child like that, I don’t care what she had done!” exclaimed Miss Silence. And Mrs. Patience added in her gentle tone, “Poor child! wouldn’t you like something to eat?” for Mrs. Patience had the idea that children were in a perpetual state of hunger. “Was this Mrs. Hagood always cruel to you?” questioned Mrs. Blossom.