"It's some goodies--from the party, mum"--she struggled to say between short breaths and sobs, "that Katie Ryan give me--an' I kept--to make a party--for the children, with--to-day, mum--when the chores was done--and I'll leave 'em--for 'em--if you please."
Glory laid her coals of fire upon the table as she spoke. Master Herbert eyed them, as one utterly unconscious of a scorch.
"I s'pose I might come back and get my bundle," said Glory, standing still in the hope of one last kindly or relenting word.
"Oh, yes, if you get a place," said her mistress, dryly, affecting to treat the whole affair as a childish, though unwonted burst of petulance.
But Glory, not daring, unbidden, even to kiss the baby, went steadily and sorrowfully out into the street, and drew the door behind her, that shut with a catch lock, and fastened her out into the wide world.
Not stopping to think, she hurried on, up Budd and down Branch Street, and across the green common path to the apple stand and Bridget Foye.
"I've done it! I've gone! And I don't know what to do, nor where to go to!"
"Arrah, poor little rid hin! So, ye've found yer schiasors, have ye, an' let yersel' loose out o' the bag? Well, it's I that is glad, though I wouldn't pit ye up till it," says Bridget Foye.
Poor little red hen. She had cut a hole, and jumped out of the bag, to be sure; but here she was, "all alone by herself" once more, and the foxes--Want and Cruelty--ravening after her all through the great, dreary wood!
This day, at least, passed comfortably enough, however, although with an undertone of sadness--in the sunshine, by Bridget's apple stand, watching the gay passers-by, and shaping some humble hopes and plans for the future. For dinner, she shared Mrs. Foye's plain bread and cheese, and made a dessert of an apple and a handful of peanuts. At night Bridget took her home and gave her shelter, and the next day she started her off with a "God bless ye and good luck till ye," in the charge of an older girl who lodged in the same building, and who was also "out after a place."
"Black spirits and white, Red spirits and gray; Mingle, mingle, mingle, You that mingle may." MACBETH.
It was a small, close, dark room--Mrs. Griggs's Intelligence Office--a little counter and show case dividing off its farther end, making a sanctum for Mrs. Griggs, who sat here in rheumatic ponderosity, dependent for whatever involved locomotion on the rather alarming alacrity of an impish-looking granddaughter who is elbowing her way through the throng of applicants for places and servants. She paid no heed to the astonishment of a severe-looking, elderly lady, who, by her impetuous onset, has been rudely thrust back into the very arms of a fat, unsavory cook with whom she had a minute before been quite unwillingly set to confer by the high priestess of the place.