"It was always her idea that I shouldn't be a servant, but I believe in
doing what you gets most coin for doing. I should like to have been a
jockey, and I could have ridden well enough--the Gaffer thought better at
one time of my riding than he did of Ginger's. But I never had any luck;
when I was about fifteen I began to grow.... If I could have remained like
the Demon----"

Esther looked at him, wondering if he were speaking seriously, and really
wished away his splendid height and shoulders.

A few days later he tried to persuade her to take a ticket in a shilling
sweepstakes which he was getting up among the out and the indoor servants.
She pleaded poverty--her wages would not be due till the end of August.
But William offered to lend her the money, and he pressed the hat
containing the bits of paper on which were written the horses' names so
insinuatingly upon her that a sudden impulse to oblige him came over her,
and before she had time to think she had put her hand in the hat and taken
a number.

"Come, none of your betting and gambling in my kitchen," said Mrs. Latch,
turning from her work. "Why can't you leave that innocent girl alone?"

"Don't be that disagreeable, mother; it ain't betting, it's a
sweepstakes."

"It is all the same," muttered Mrs. Latch; "it always begins that way, and
it goes on from bad to worse. I never saw any good come from it, and
Heaven knows I've seen enough misfortune."

Margaret and Sarah paused, looking at her open-mouthed, a little