“She’s in the Union,” said Anne, “and she sits there without speaking, staring into the fire.  Nobody can rouse her.  She seems to have no life left in her.  It’s pitiful to see her, and to think of what’s coming to her.”

“She’s been foolish,” said Mrs Hankworth, “and I expect she’ll find plenty to make her pay for her foolishness.  But I see no reason why she shouldn’t do all the better for a lesson.  She’ll have to work though.  There’ll be no sitting round in silk blouses doing fancy-work.  You needn’t be troubled about her moping when she’s got the baby.  They don’t leave you much time for that,” she added with a laugh of retrospection.  “But your first baby’s as much trouble as ten.  If she can earn a living when she comes out she’ll be better without that Burton.  He’s no better than a child’s balloon.  He’s up, and you prick him with a pin and he’s down!  She’s provided in the Union, I suppose?”

“I think so, since they never asked anything about it,” said Anne.

“What sort of a place is it, Miss Hilton?” asked Mrs Hankworth in the tone of one who might be enquiring after a prison or worse.

“They’d a nice big fire,” said Anne, “and until you came to look at the people, it looked quite comfortable.  But when you came to look at those poor things, and thought that that was all they had to expect, it made your heart ache.”

“She’s a good matron I’ve heard,” said Mrs Hankworth.

“She’s a kind woman,” returned Anne, heartily, “and I suppose it’s a good thing they’ve got such a place to shelter them.  But it seems a poor end somehow, and not a place for young people.  There seems to be no hope in it, and yet it’s clean, and they’ve got good food.”

“Other people’s bread doesn’t taste like your own to them that’s been used to having any,” returned Mrs Hankworth.  “I expect, if you’ve never had any of your own, you’re glad to get anything.  I suppose Burton’s out of the country.”

“Nobody seems to know rightly,” said Anne.  “Jane says not a word.  I don’t suppose she really knows anything.”

“She’ll come to see that she’s better without him,” said Mrs Hankworth, taking up the prints and working the butter emphatically.  “But she must work like the rest of us.  It’s generally the long clothes that gets left over,” she added, “the short ones get worn out by some of them, but I’ll look and see what I can find.  It’ll be rather nice to be looking out baby-things again.  There’s nothing you miss more than a baby, when you’ve had one or other about for a good many years.  But she’d never do any good with that Burton about.”