"Partly right and partly wrong. I mean that I've no objections to take Sally and the little creature as seems to be cast upon the world without a friend, and give 'em both their meals and a bed. So far you're right. But you're not as to the three-and-sixpence a week." "Would you want more, Mr. Dumbrick?" asked Mrs. Chester imploringly. "I've been reckoning up as I came along how much a year three-and-sixpence a week is, and I make it out to be more than nine pound. That's a big hole in eighteen pound. You wouldn't be able to save a shilling out of it." "I don't want to; I only want to live. God help us! Poor people _must_ live as well as rich." "They've as much right to, certainly, but that's not to the point. This is. I'm not willing to take three-and-sixpence a week. I'll take half-a-crown." "God bless you, Mr. Dumbrick! How shall I ever thank you?" Seth made a wry face at the blessing. "But I've got a bargain of another kind to make. There's Sally's baby. She comes too, of course, and we don't reckon her. She's thrown in, as a body might say--a kind of make-weight. Now Sally is your child, and I reckon you are fond of her." Mrs. Chester sighed an eloquent assent. "One of these fine days," continued Seth, "you might make your fortune sudden." (Mrs. Chester thought of her lovely lad and his lucky mole, and listened with greater interest.) "You might pick up a purse of money, or an old pauper might die, and when you ripped up her clothes you might find 'em stuffed with bank-notes. In that case you'd come to me and take Sally away." "It ain't likely any of them things'll happen, Mr. Dumbrick." "I've heard of stranger things. Now I go on again. I should by that time have got used to Sally, perhaps, and shouldn't like to part with her. That wouldn't matter to you. You'd take her. But there's the other. _She's_ not your child, and you've no claim on her." "No more than you have." "Very well, then. Now I make this bargain with you, Mrs. Chester. If ever anything should happen as'd make you want to take Sally away, you wouldn't take the baby away as well. She'd be mine, and you'd have no right to her. You understand?" "Perfectly, and I'm quite agreeable. A mother's got enough to do with her own children, without being saddled with strange ones. Though this little one is a beautiful child, Mr. Dumbrick, and my heart warmed to her so that if I could afford it I'd be glad to keep her. God help those who've deserted her so cruelly!" "Then it's a bargain, and I'll go and send Sally to you. You'd best keep the children with you till you go away. Then you can bring 'em to me, and make 'em over." "You'll be kind to Sally, Mr. Dumbrick." Seth rasped his chin with his horny hand. "As kind as it's in my nature to be; I can't promise more than that." "And you won't mind her fainting away now and then; she'll get over it as she grows, I hope."