Lost Gip by Hesba Stretton

SANDY had no desire to slip away from the friendly guardianship of Mrs. Shafto. Her words had strengthened the new hope in his heart, that the grave was not the end of those children he had seen buried in it, and he wished to learn more about this strange and good news. He kept close beside her, though she seemed less inclined to talk to him than when they were going to look for his mother. She could not trust herself to speak, for her heart was full of the sad and terrible sight she had just left.

Mrs. Shafto was also a little anxious about Sandy, who followed her so closely, as closely as a stray and homeless dog might have done, and for whom she had undertaken a kind of responsibility. Though they were not as miserable and degraded as the people she had been seeing, they were very poor, she and her husband; so poor that, but for her own hard and incessant work as a needlewoman, they would often have to go without sufficient bread to eat.