"Well, you see, miss," replied Mrs. Baldwin, "we're not in the way of having to do with such people, for my husband's rather particular about who he lets the top rooms to; only let them we must to one or another, for times is hard an' children is many, an' it's all as we can do to pay our way an' nothing over; only thank God we've done it up to this present; an' the man looked so decent, as well as the woman, an' that pitiful-like--more than she did--that I couldn't have the heart to send them away such a night as it was, bein' a sort o' drizzly an' as cold as charity, an' the poor woman plainly not in a state to go wanderin' about seekin' a place to lay her head; though to be sure there's plenty o' places for such like, only as the poor man said himself, they did want to get into a decent place, which it wasn't easy to get e'er a one as would take them in. They had three children with them, the smallest o' them pickaback on the biggest; an' it's strange, miss--I never could compass it, though I atten' chapel reg'lar--how it goes to yer heart I mean, to see one human bein' lookin' arter another! But my husban', as was natural, he bein' a householder, an' so many of his own, was shy o' children; for children, you know, miss, 'cep' they be yer own, ain't nice things about a house; an' them poor things wouldn't be a credit nowheres, for they're ragged enough--an' a good deal more than enough--only they were pretty clean, as poor children go, an' there was nothing, as I said to him, in the top-rooms, as they could do much harm to. The man said theirs weren't like other children, for they had been brought up to do the thing as they were told, an' to remember that things that belonged to other people was to be handled as sich; an', said he, they were always too busy earnin' their bread to be up to tricks, an' in fact were always too tired to have much spare powder to let off; so the long an' short on it was, we took 'em in, an' they've turned out as quiet an' well-behaved a family as you could desire; an' if they ain't got jest the most respectable way o' earnin' their livelihood, that may be as much their misfortin as their fault, as my husband he said. An' I'm sure it's not lettin' lodgin's to sich I ever thought I should come to--though, for the matter o' that, I never could rightly understand what made one thing respectable an' another not." "What is their employment then?" asked Hester. "Something or other in the circus-way, as far as I can make out from what they tell me. Anyway they didn't seem to have no engagement when they come to the door, but they paid the first week down afore they entered. You see, miss, the poor woman she give me a kind of a look up into the face that reminded me of my Susie, as I lost, you know, miss, a year ago--it was that as made me feel to hate the thought of sending her away. Oh, miss, ain't it a mercy everybody ain't so like your own! We'd have to ruin ourselves for them--we couldn't help it!"