LITTLE RIE
much as might have been expected; she did not mind being out in the dark either, for she was well accustomed to it; but she was very tired, they had walked so far that day; and every minute she looked out into the garden and listened, and wondered why her mammy did not come, for she was alone. After they had left that house in the afternoon, they had walked far out on to the great heath, and had sat down, and then her mammy had said to her, 'Now, child, you may go back, do you hear?' and she had risen and said, 'Yes, mammy, where am I to go back to?' 'It don't much signify,' her mammy had answered; 'you may go back to that little house where they gave us the pudding, and I shall be sure to come soon; I'm a-coming directly.' 'And shall you be sure to find me, mammy?' she had asked; and then her mammy was angry and said, 'Set off directly when I bid you; I shall find you fast enough when I want you.'
So she had set off as fast as she could; but it was a long way, and a long while before she reached the porch, and then she was so tired she thought she should have cried if there had not been a little bench to sit down on.
She called this woman her mammy, but she had a real mother a long way off, of whom this one had hired her, because when they went out begging, her little appealing face made people charitable. What wonder, since the real mother could so give her up, that the pretended one should desert her if she no longer needed her!
But she did not know her desolate condition. She only thought what a long, long time her mammy was
