r. Totty, thus unceremoniously shut out, turned away;
she felt miserable, and the feeling was so strange to her that before
she had gone many steps she again began to cry She had understood well
enough the thought expressed in Mrs. Poole's face; it was gratuitous
unkindness, and just now she was not prepared for it. There was much of
the child in her still, for all her years of independence in the
highways and by-ways of Lambeth, and, finding it needful to cry, she
let her tears have free course, only now and then dashing the back of
her hand against the corner of her lips as she walked on. Why should
the woman be so ready to think evil of her? She had done nothing
whatever to deserve it, nothing; she had kept herself a good girl, for
all that she lived alone and liked to laugh. At another time most
likely she would have cared something less than a straw for Mrs.
Poole's opinion of her, but just now--somehow--well, she didn't know
quite how it was. Why would Luke keep on drinking in that way, and
oblige her to run out of the music-ball? It was his fault, the foolish
fellow. But he had been quick enough to defend her; a girl would not
find it amiss to have that arm always at her service. And in the
meantime he was in the police cell.

Mrs. Poole, excessively annoyed, went down to the kitchen. Her husband
sat in front of the fire, a long clay pipe at his lips, his feet very
wide apart on the fender; up on the high mantelpiece stood a half
finished glass of beer. Though he still held the pipe, he was nodding;
as his wife entered, his head fell very low.

'Jim!' exclaimed his wife, as if something had been added to her
annoyance.

'Eh? Well, Jane?--eh?'

'Then you _will_ set your great feet on the fender! The minute I turn
my back, of course! If you're too lazy to take your boots off, you must
keep your heels under the chair. I won't have my fender scratched, so I
tell you!'

He was a large-headed man, sleepy in appearance at the best of times,
but enormously good-natured. He bent down in a startled way to see if
his boots had really done any harm.

'Well, well, I won't do it again, Jenny,' he mumbled.

'Of course, I wonder how often you've said that. As it happens, it's as
well you have got your boots on still. There's a girl o' some kind just
come to say as Luke's locked up for fightin' in the street. He sent for
you to bail him out.'

'Why, there! Tut-tut-tut! What a fellow that is! Fightin'? Why now,
didn't I