et wide apart, which looked as if they could masticate
an iron bar. She was dressed like Liza, in a shortish black skirt and
an old-fashioned bodice, green and grey and yellow with age; her
sleeves were tucked up to the elbow, and she wore a singularly dirty
apron, that had once been white.

'Wot 'ave you got yer 'air in them things for?' asked Liza, pointing
to the curl-papers. 'Goin' aht with yer young man ter-day?'

'No, I'm going ter stay 'ere all day.'

'Wot for, then?'

'Why, 'Arry's going ter tike me ter Chingford ter-morrer.'

'Oh? In the "Red Lion" brake?'

'Yus. Are you goin'?'

'Na!'

'Not! Well, why don't you get round Tom? 'E'll tike yer, and jolly
glad 'e'll be, too.'

''E arst me ter go with 'im, but I wouldn't.'

'Swop me bob--why not?'

'I ain't keeping company with 'im.'

'Yer might 'ave gone with 'im all the sime.'

'Na. You're goin' with 'Arry, ain't yer?'

'Yus!'

'An' you're goin' to 'ave 'im?'

'Right again!'

'Well, I couldn't go with Tom, and then throw him over.'

'Well, you are a mug!'

The two girls had strolled down towards the Westminster Bridge Road,
and Sally, meeting her young man, had gone to him. Liza walked back,
wishing to get home in time to cook the dinner. But she went slowly,
for she knew every dweller in the street, and as she passed the groups
sitting at their doors, as on the previous evening, but this time
mostly engaged in peeling potatoes or shelling peas, she stopped and
had a little chat. Everyone liked her, and was glad to have her
company. 'Good old Liza,' they would say, as she left them, 'she's a
rare good sort, ain't she?'

She asked after the aches and pains of all the old people, and
delicately inquired after the babies, past and future; the children
hung on to her skirts and asked her to play with them, and she would
hold one end of the rope while tiny little ragged girls skipped,
invariably entangling themselves after two jumps.

She had nearly reached home, when she heard a voice cry:

'Mornin'!'

She looked round and recognized the man whom Tom had told her was
called Jim Blakeston. He was sitting on a stool at the door of one of
the houses, playing with two young children, to whom he was giving
rides on his knee. She remembered his heavy brown beard from the day
before, and she had also an impression of great size; she noticed this
morning that he was, in fact, a big man, tall and broad, and she saw
besides that he had large, m