On the day when Mrs. Rushton's relations met at Amber Hill Hetty sat in
the housekeeper's room in a little straw chair at the fire, with Scamp
clasped in her arms and her head resting against his. She felt
instinctively that her fate was being sealed upstairs. Indeed a few
words which had passed between Grant and the housekeeper, and which she
had accidentally overheard, assured her that such would be the case.
"If Mrs. Rushton has left her nothing," said Grant, "she'll be out on
the world again, as she was before. Mrs. Kane may take her, unless the
gentlemen do something for her."
"Mr. Enderby will never allow her to go back to poor Anne Kane," said
the housekeeper. "There's many a cheap way of providing for a friendless
child, and it wouldn't be fair to put her on a woman that can hardly
keep her own little home together."
Hetty's anguish was unspeakable as these words sank into her heart, each
one making a wound. She shuddered at the thought of going back to Mrs.
Kane, but felt even more horror of those unknown "cheap ways of
providing for a friendless child," alluded to by the housekeeper.
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