wards the elder girl, who was standing full in the lamplight.

'Come here, Amy,' she said after a moment's scrutiny. 'So you _will_
keep doin' that foolish thing! Very well, then, I shall have to speak
to your father about it; I'm not goin' to see you make yourself ill and
do nothing to prevent you.'

Amy, now a girl of eleven, affected much indignation.

'Why, I haven't touched a drop, Mrs. Eagles!'

'Now, now, now, now, now! Why, your lips are shrivelled up like a bit
of o' dried orange-peel! You're a silly girl, that's what you are!'

Of late Amy Hewett had become the victim of a singular propensity;
whenever she could obtain vinegar, she drank it as a toper does
spirits. Inadequate nourishment, and especially an unsatisfied palate,
frequently have this result in female children among the poor; it is an
anticipation of what will befall them as soon as they find their way to
the publichouse.

Having administered a scolding, Mrs. Eagles went into the room which
she and her husband occupied. It was so encumbered with furniture that
not more than eight or ten square feet of floor can have been available
for movement. On the bed sat Mr. Eagles, a spare, large-headed, ugly,
but very thoughtful-looking man; he and Sidney Kirkwood had been
acquaintances and fellow-workmen for some years, but no close intimacy
had arisen between them, owing to the difference of their tastes and
views. Eagles was absorbed in the study of a certain branch of
political statistics; the enthusiasm of his life was Financial Reform.
Every budget presented to Parliament he criticised with extraordinary
thoroughness, and, in fact, with an acumen which would have made him no
inefficient auxiliary of the Chancellor himself. Of course he took the
view that the nation's resources were iniquitously wasted, and of
course had little difficulty in illustrating a truth so obvious; what
distinguished him from the ordinary malcontent of Clerkenwell Green was
his logical faculty and the surprising extent of the information with
which he had furnished himself. Long before there existed a 'Financial
Reform Almanack,' Eagles practically represented that work in his own
person. Disinterested, ardent, with thoughts for but one subject in the
scope of human inquiry, he lived contentedly on his two pounds a week,
and was for ever engaged in the theoretic manipulation of millions.
Utopian budgets multiplied themselves in his brain and his note-books.
He devised imp