ess of horror as she turned the handle of the other door and began
to grope her way. She knew exactly where the coffin was; she knew that
to avoid touching it in the diminutive room was all but impossible. And
touch it she did. Her anguish uttered itself, not in a mere sound of
terror, but in a broken word or two of a prayer she knew by heart,
including a name which sounded like a charm against evil. She had
reached the mantel-piece; oh, she could not, could not find the matches
I Yes, at last her hand closed on them. A blind rush, and she was out
again in the passage. She re-entered the front-kitchen with limbs that
quivered, with the sound of dreadful voices ringing about her, and
blankness before her eyes.

Clem laughed heartily, then finished her beer in a long, enjoyable
pull. Her appetite was satisfied; the last trace of oleaginous matter
had disappeared from her plate, and now she toyed with little pieces of
bread lightly dipped into the mustard-pot. These _bonnes bouches_ put
her into excellent humour; presently she crossed her arms and leaned
back. There was no denying that Clem was handsome; at sixteen she had
all her charms in apparent maturity, and they were of the coarsely
magnificent order. Her forehead was low and of great width; her nose
was well shapen, and had large sensual apertures; her cruel lips may be
seen on certain fine antique busts; the neck that supported her heavy
head was splendidly rounded. In laughing, she became a model for an
artist, an embodiment of fierce life independent of morality. Her
health was probably less sound than it seemed to be; one would have
compared her, not to some piece of exuberant normal vegetation, but
rather to a rank, evilly-fostered growth. The putrid soil of that
nether world yields other forms besides the obviously blighted and
sapless.

'Have you done any work for Mrs. Hewett to-day?' she asked of her
victim, after sufficiently savouring the spectacle of terror.

'Yes, miss; I did the front-room fireplace, an' fetched fourteen of
coals, an' washed out a few things.'

'What did she give you?'

'A penny, miss. I gave it to Mrs. Peckover before she went.'

'Oh, you did? Well, look 'ere; you'll just remember in future that all
you get from the lodgers belongs to me, an' not to mother. It's a new
arrangement, understand. An' if you dare to give up a 'apenny to
mother, I'll lick you till you're nothin' but a bag o' bones.
Understand?'

Having on the spur o