“My poor girl,” said I, laying my face against her forehead, for indeed I was crying too, and trembling, “it seems cruel to trouble you now, but more depends on our knowing something about this letter than I could tell you in an hour.”

She began piteously declaring that she didn’t mean any harm, she didn’t mean any harm, Mrs. Snagsby!

“We are all sure of that,” said I.  “But pray tell me how you got it.”

“Yes, dear lady, I will, and tell you true.  I’ll tell true, indeed, Mrs. Snagsby.”

“I am sure of that,” said I.  “And how was it?”

“I had been out on an errand, dear lady—­long after it was dark—­ quite late; and when I came home, I found a common-looking person, all wet and muddy, looking up at our house.  When she saw me coming in at the door, she called me back and said did I live here.  And I said yes, and she said she knew only one or two places about here, but had lost her way and couldn’t find them.  Oh, what shall I do, what shall I do!  They won’t believe me!  She didn’t say any harm to me, and I didn’t say any harm to her, indeed, Mrs. Snagsby!”

It was necessary for her mistress to comfort her—­which she did, I must say, with a good deal of contrition—­before she could be got beyond this.

“She could not find those places,” said I.

“No!” cried the girl, shaking her head.  “No!  Couldn’t find them.  And she was so faint, and lame, and miserable, Oh so wretched, that if you had seen her, Mr. Snagsby, you’d have given her half a crown, I know!”

“Well, Guster, my girl,” said he, at first not knowing what to say.  “I hope I should.”

“And yet she was so well spoken,” said the girl, looking at me with wide open eyes, “that it made a person’s heart bleed.  And so she said to me, did I know the way to the burying ground?  And I asked her which burying ground.  And she said, the poor burying ground.  And so I told her I had been a poor child myself, and it was according to parishes.  But she said she meant a poor burying ground not very far from here, where there was an archway, and a step, and an iron gate.”

As I watched her face and soothed her to go on, I saw that Mr. Bucket received this with a look which I could not separate from one of alarm.

“Oh, dear, dear!” cried the girl, pressing her hair back with her hands.  “What shall I do, what shall I do!  She meant the burying ground where the man was buried that took the sleeping-stuff—­that you came home and told us of, Mr. Snagsby—­that frightened me so, Mrs. Snagsby.  Oh, I am frightened again.  Hold me!”

“You are so much better now,” sald I.  “Pray, pray tell me more.”

“Yes I will, yes I will!  But don’t be angry with me, that’s a dear lady, because I have been so ill.”

Angry with her, poor soul!