Perry.
Her clinging to Huldah was more than a passing fancy, as they found,
when they tried to get her to go into a home where she could have had
rest and change and food and nursing. She sobbed and pleaded, then
flatly refused to go, unless Huldah went too.
"She's the only one in the world I know," she cried. "Don't send me
away with strangers, they'll all look down on me, and--and I--no, I
couldn't bear it. I won't go, I won't, I won't! I'll go off on the
tramp again, where none of you will ever find me, and I won't ever
bother any of you any more."
At last Huldah went with tears in her eyes to Miss Carew. "I'll have
to go with her, miss," she said, piteously. "She can't go away on
the tramp all by herself. I can keep us both pretty well. I must go
with her, Miss Rose, wherever she goes; she hasn't got anybody else."
This of course they could not allow. They could never send such a
child as Huldah out into the world, with only a dying woman as
companion and protector, to live where and how she could, in nobody
knew what dreadful haunts. So it was decided between them that Emma
Smith was to settle down amongst them, and Huldah must leave Mrs.
Perry and go to live with her. No lodgings could be found for her,
for in that village the houses were not big enough to hold in comfort
even the families that lived in them, and there was certainly no room
for a lodger.
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