Page:That Lass o' Lowrie's.djvu/52

34 it a place scarcely to be approved of. Before the low fire sat a girl with a child on her knee, and this girl, hearing the visitor's footsteps, got up hurriedly, and met him with a half abashed, half frightened look on her pale face.

"Lowrie is na here, an' neyther is Joan," she said, without waiting for him to speak. "Both on 'em's at th' pit. Theer's no one here but me," and she held the baby over her shoulder, as if she would like to have hidden it.

Mr. Barholm walked in serenely, sure that he ought to be welcome, if he were not.

"At the pit, are they?" he answered. "Dear me! I might have remembered that they would be at this time. Well, well; I will take a seat, my girl, and talk to you a little. I suppose you know me, the minister at the church—Mr. Barholm."

Liz, a slender slip of a creature, large-eyed, and woebegone, stood up before him, staring at him irresolutely as he seated himself.

"I—I dunnot know nobody much now," she stammered. "I—I've been away fro' Riggan sin' afore yo' comn—if yo're th' new parson," and then she colored nervously and became fearfully conscious of her miserable little burden. "I've heerd Joan speak o' th' young parson," she faltered.

Her visitor looked at her gravely. What a helpless, childish creature she was, with her pretty face, and her baby, and her characterless, frightened way. She was only one of many—poor Liz, ignorant, emotional, weak, easily led, ready to err, unable to bear the consequences of error, not strong enough to be resolutely wicked, not strong enough to be anything, in particular, but that which her surroundings made her. If she had been well-born and well brought up, she would have been a pretty,