of that kind for a neighbour, as chance occurred. Whatever the man’s labour, the girl was never employed; but sat, when she was with him, in a listless, moping state, and idle.
Florence had often wished to speak to this man; yet she had never taken courage to do so, as he made no movement towards her. But one morning when she happened to come upon him suddenly, from a by-path among some pollard willows which terminated in the little shelving piece of stony ground that lay between his dwelling and the water, where he was bending over a fire he had made to caulk the old boat which was lying bottom upwards, close by, he raised his head at the sound of her footstep, and gave her Good morning.
"Good morning," said Florence, approaching nearer, "you are at work early."
"I’d be glad to be often at work earlier, Miss, if I had work to do."
"Is it so hard to get?" asked Florence.
"I find it so," replied the man.
Florence glanced to where the girl was sitting, drawn together, with her elbows on her knees, and her chin on her hands, and said:
"Is that your daughter?"
He raised his head quickly, and looking towards the girl with a brightened face, nodded to her, and said "Yes," Florence looked towards her too, and gave her a kind salutation; the girl muttered something in return, ungraciously and sullenly.
"Is she in want of employment also?" said Florence.
The man shook his head. "No, Miss," he said. "I work for both."
"Are there only you two, then?" inquired Florence.
"Only us two," said the man. "Her mother his been dead these ten year. Martha!" (he lifted up his head again, and whistled to her) "won’t you say a word to the pretty young lady?"
The girl made an impatient gesture with her cowering shoulders, and turned her head another way. Ugly, mis-shapen, peevish, ill-conditioned, ragged, dirty—but beloved! Oh yes! Florence had seen her father’s look towards her, and she knew whose look it had no likeness to.
"I’m afraid she’s worse this morning, my poor girl!" said the man, suspending his work, and contemplating his ill-favoured child, with a compassion that was the more tender for being rougher.
"She is ill, then!" said Florence.
The man drew a deep sigh. "I don’t believe my Martha’s had five short days’ good health," he answered, looking at her still, "in as many long years."
"Aye! and more than that, John," said a neighbour, who had come down to help him with the boat.
"More than that, you say, do you?" cried the other, pushing back his battered hat, and drawing his hand across his forehead. "Very like. It seems a long, long time."
"And the more the time," pursued the neighbour, "the more you ’ve favoured and humoured her, John, 'till she’s got to be a burden to herself, and everybody else."
"Not to me," said her father, falling to his work. "Not to me."
Florence could feel—who better?—how truly he spoke. She drew a
