Fan

ree miserable days of suspense she had spent most of her time hanging about the doors of the hospital, going timidly at intervals to inquire, and to ask to be allowed to see her mother

drinking-fountain, the omnibuses and perpetual streams of' foot-passengers on the broad pavement. She knew it all so well, yet now it looked so unfamiliar. She was a stranger, lost and alone there in that place and everywhere. She was walking there like one in a dream, from which there would be no more waking to the old reality; no more begging pence from careless passers-by in the street; no more shrinking away and

room at the top, but remained standing in the passage near the landla

other now?" she ask

eturned Fan, ha

all on account of him. Dead, and he on the drink-Lord only knows where he gits it-and lying there asleep in his room, and his poor wife dead at the hospital, and never thinking how he's going to pay the rent. I've stood it long enough for poor Margy, poor dear, because we was friends like, and she'd her tr

all now. "I'd do anything for mother," she said, with

say, only they didn't do what's right by you. Now don't cry, po

ore," murmured Fan, in

now Joe Harrod, and only wish he'd got his head broke instead of poor Margy. Ain't you got no relatio

no one," m

'll have tea with us, and I'll let you sleep in my room. But, Fan, if Joe won't keep you and goes off

were put away out of sight. For those who went to gaol for doing wrong there was hope; not so for the penniless, friendless incapables who drifted or were dragged into the dreary refuge of the "House." They might come out again when the weather was warm, and try to renew the struggle in which they had suffered defeat; but their case would be then like that of the fighter who has been felled to the earth, and staggers up, half stunned and blinded with blood, to renew the combat with an uninjured opponent. And yet the words she had heard, while pers

ead at the hospital. When she proceeded to add that Joe would sell the sticks and go off, leaving Fan on

he wall. She woke with a start two hours later to find herself alone in the room, but there was still some fire in the grate, and a candle burning on th

uskily. "Where's the girl

y and place herself for ever beyond his reach. Somewhere in this great city she might find a hiding-place; it was so vast; in all directions the great thoroughfares stretched away into the infinite distance, bright all night with the flaring gas and filled with crowds of people and the noise of traffic; and branching off from the thoroughfares there

if he comes bothering for you to-night, I'll soon s

r or five chairs. For the present she felt safe; but she could not sleep much, even on a bed made luxurious by

so got up and dressed herself in all haste, and after waiting till she heard the man leave the house, she went into the next room, and Mrs. Clark

the House, for Joe Harrod's not the man to take care of you. They'll feed you and give you decent clothes, and that's something; and perhaps they'll send you to some place where

once clear of the neighbourhood, to remain away, but Mrs. Clark had spok

he direction of Norfolk Crescent. Skirting the neighbourhood of squares and gardens and large houses, she soon reached Praed{035} Street, and then the Harrow Road, along which she hurriedly walked;

ut her, for she was nothing to them; and as for Joe Harrod, she had heard them say that he would be called that d

nd and made her ashamed of addressing any person. Towards noon hunger and fatigue began to make her very faint; and by-and-by the short daylight would fail, and there would be no food and no shelter for the night. This thought spurred her in

woman, the moment she put

want a girl to

pleased that this girl was no buyer of an honest bundle of wood, a ha'porth of treacle, or a half-ounce of

the shops in that mean little street at last, but nobody wanted her, and in one or two instances she was order

apprehension of the cold night spent out of doors; even her hunger seemed to leave her; she wanted only to sit down and fall asleep and remember no more. By-and-by she found herself again in the Harrow Road, but her brain was confused, so that she did not know whether she was going east or west. It was growing colder now and darker, and a grey mist was forming in the air, and she could find no shelter anywhere from the cold and mud and mist, and from the eyes of the passers-by that seemed to look so pitilessly at her. The sole of one of her shoes was worn through, and the cold flag-stones of the footway and the mud of the streets made her foot numb, so that she could scarcely lift it. Near Paddington Green-for she had been for some time walking back t

numbers is mostly rubbed off the

king for anyo

you standing as if you didn

knew even in these poor tenements, and only wished to rest a little there out of si

iting for someon

N

lded it. It contained a bloater: she felt it carefully as though to make sure that it had a soft roe, and then smelt it to make sure that it was good, after w

aven't,"

. P'r'aps they treated yo

no

place to go to,

N

r of it, and at last said, still speaking in the same absent mournful tone: "I've got a room to myself up there," indicating the upper end of th

g in they went up to a top room, small and dingy, furnished with a bed, a small deal table, one chair, and a deal box, which served as a washing-stand. But there was a fire burning in the small grate, with a kettle on; and a co

," she said, drawing her one ca

ed, and then sat warming herself, to

ll so strangely quiet there, with no sound except the kettle singing, and the hissing and sputtering of the toasting herring, that the unaccustomed silence had the effect of rousing the girl, and she glanced at the woman moving so noiselessly about the room. She was not yet past middle age, but had the coarsened look and furrowed skin of one whose lot in li

hings washed and put away, she drew the deal box up to the fire and sat down by Fan. Then they talked a little: Fan told her that her mother was just dead, that she was homeless and trying to find something to do for a living. The woman, on her side, said she worked at a laundry close by. "But they don't want no more hands there,"

n they went to bed and to sl