Bethnal Green, the room of one cumbered by little save age, and
the crockery debris of the past. A bed, a cupboard, a coloured
portrait of Queen Victoria, and--of all things--a fiddle,
hanging on the wall. By the side of old MRS. LEMMY in her chair
is a pile of corduroy trousers, her day's sweated sewing, and a
small table. She sits with her back to the window, through
which, in the last of the light, the opposite side of the little
grey street is visible under the evening sky, where hangs one
white cloud shaped like a horned beast. She is still sewing,
and her lips move. Being old, and lonely, she has that habit of
talking to herself, distressing to those who cannot overhear.
From the smack of her tongue she was once a West Country cottage
woman; from the look of her creased, parchmenty face, she was
once a pretty girl with black eyes, in which there is still much
vitality. The door is opened with difficulty and a little girl
enters, carrying a pile of unfinished corduroy trousers nearly
as large as herself. She puts them down against the wall, and
advances. She is eleven or twelve years old; large-eyed, dark
haired, and sallow. Half a woman of this and half of another
world, except when as now, she is as irresponsible a bit of life
as a little flowering weed growing out of a wall. She stands
looking at MRS. LEMMY with dancing eyes.

L. AIDA. I've brought yer to-morrer's trahsers. Y'nt yer finished
wiv to-dy's? I want to tyke 'em.

MRS. L. No, me dear. Drat this last one--me old fengers!

L. AIDA. I learnt some poytry to-dy--I did.

MRS. L. Well, I never!

L. AIDA. [Reciting with unction]

"Little lamb who myde thee?
Dost thou know who myde thee,
Gyve thee life and byde thee feed
By the stream and oer the mead;
Gyve the clothing of delight,
Softest clothing, woolly, bright;
Gyve thee such a tender voice,
Myking all the vyles rejoice.
Little lamb who myde thee?
Dost thou know who myde thee?"

MRS. L. 'Tes wonderful what things they tache ya nowadays.

L. AIDA. When I grow up I'm goin' to 'ave a revolver an' shoot the
people that steals my jools.

MRS. L. Deary-me, wherever du yu get yore notions?

L. AIDA. An' I'm goin' to ride on as 'orse be'ind a man; an' I'm
goin'