But here is Sue, she might as well have said. Things is hard for us, now. But here is Sue. She''ll fix ''em . . .
I let her think it; but thought I knew better. I''d heard once that she''d had a child of her own, many years before, that had been born dead. I thought it was her face she supposed she saw, when she gazed so hard at mine. The idea made me shiver, rather; for it was queer to think of being loved, not just for my own sake, but for someone''s I never kne''V . . .
I thought I knew all about love, in those days. I thought I knew all about everything. If you had asked me how I supposed I should go on, I dare say I would have said that I should like to farm infants. I might like to be married, to a thief or a fencing-man. There was a boy, when I was fifteen, that stole a clasp for me, and said he should like to kiss me. There was another a little later, who used to stand at our back door and whistle The Locksmith''s Daughter'', expressly to see me blush. Mrs Sucksby chased them both away. She was as careful of me in that department, as in all others.
''Who''s she keeping you for, then?'' the boys would say. ''Prince Eddie?''
I think the people who came to Lant Street thought me slow.— Slow I mean, as opposed to fast. Perhaps I was, by Borough standards. But it seemed to me that I was sharp enough. You could not have grown up in such a house, that had such businesses in it, without having a pretty good idea of what was what—of what could go into what; and what could come out.