ed the rickety stairs, which groaned and creaked beneath
their weight, and found Mother Guttersnipe lying on the bed in the
corner. The elfish black-haired child was playing cards with a
slatternly-looking girl at a deal table by the faint light of a tallow
candle.

They both sprang to their feet as the strangers entered, and the elfish
child pushed a broken chair in a sullen manner towards Mr. Calton,
while the other girl shuffled into a far corner of the room, and
crouched down there like a dog. The noise of their entry awoke the hag
from an uneasy slumber into which she had fallen. Sitting up in bed,
she huddled the clothes round her. She presented such a gruesome
spectacle that involuntarily Calton recoiled. Her white hair was
unbound, and hung in tangled masses over her shoulders in snowy
profusion. Her face, parched and wrinkled, with the hooked nose, and
beady black eyes, like those of a mouse, was poked forward, and her
skinny arms, bare to the shoulder, were waving wildly about as she
grasped at the bedclothes with her claw-like hands. The square bottle
and the broken cup lay beside her, and filling herself a dram, she
lapped it up greedily.

The irritant brought on a paroxysm of coughing which lasted until the
elfish child shook her well, and took the cup from her.

"Greedy old beast," muttered this amiable infant, peering into the cup,
"ye'd drink the Yarrer dry, I b'lieve."

"Yah!" muttered the old woman feebly. "Who's they, Lizer?" she said,
shading her eyes with one trembling hand, while she looked at Calton
and the detective.

"The perlice cove an' the swell," said Lizer, suddenly. "Come to see
yer turn up your toes."

"I ain't dead yet, ye whelp," snarled the hag with sudden energy; "an'
if I gits up I'll turn up yer toes, cuss ye."

Lizer gave a shrill laugh of disdain, and Kilsip stepped forward.

"None of this," he said, sharply, taking Lizer by one thin shoulder,
and pushing her over to where the other girl was crouching; "stop there
till I tell you to move."

Lizer tossed back her tangled black hair, and was about to make some
impudent reply, when the other girl, who was older and wiser, put out
her hand, and pulled her down beside her.

Meanwhile, Calton was addressing himself to the old woman in the corner.

"You wanted to see me?" he said gently, for, notwithstanding his
repugnance to her, she was, after all, a woman, and dying.

"Yes, cuss ye," croaked Mother Guttersnipe, lying do