Should she ask him? Poor chap, he was asleep. People were
happy when they were asleep.
A full moon floated high up in the sky, and the city was no more than a
faint shadow on the glassy stillness of the night; and she longed to float
away with the moon and the river, to be borne away out of sight of this
world.
Her baby grew heavy in her arms, and the vagrant, a bundle of rags thrown
forward in a heap, slept at the other end of the bench. But she could not
sleep, and the moon whirled on her miserable way. Then the glassy
stillness was broken by the measured tramp of the policeman going his
rounds. He directed her to Lambeth Workhouse, and as she walked towards
Westminster she heard him rousing the vagrant and bidding him move onward.
XX
Those who came to the workhouse for servants never offered more than
fourteen pounds a year, and these wages would not pay for her baby's keep
out at nurse. Her friend the matron did all she could, but it was always
fourteen pounds. "We cannot afford more." At last an offer of sixteen
pounds a year came from a tradesman in Chelsea; and the matron introduced
Esther to Mrs. Lewis, a lonely widowed woman, who for five shillings a
week would undertake to look after the child. This would leave Esther
three pounds a year for dress; three pounds a year for herself.
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