e was no
flagged walk. A few stunted poplars ran round the walls: the grass was
trodden nearly all off, and from wall to wall were stretched cords from
which fluttered a motley collection of linen hung out to dry. There was
no looking out of it. Baubie craned her adventurous small neck in all
directions. One side of the back green was overlooked by a
tenement-house; the other was guarded by the poplars and a low stone
wall; at the bottom was a dilapidated outhouse. The sky overhead was all
dull gray: a formless gray sea-mist hurried across it, driven by the
east wind, which found time as well to fill, as it passed, all the
fluttering garments on the line and swell them into ridiculous
travesties of the bodies they belonged to, tossing them the while with
high mockery into all manner of weird contortions.

Baubie looked at them curiously, and wondered to herself how much they
would all pawn for--considerably more than three shillings no doubt.
She established that fact to her own satisfaction ere long, although she
was no great arithmetician, and she sighed as she built and demolished
an air-castle in her own mind. Though there was but little attraction
for her in the room, she was about to leave the window when her eye fell
on a large black cat crouched on the wall, employed in surveillance of
the linen or stalking sparrows or in deadly ambush for a hated rival.
Meeting Baubie's glance, he sat up and stared at her suspiciously with a
pair of round yellow, unwinking orbs.

"Ki! ki! ki!" breathed Baubie discreetly. She felt lonely, and the cat
looked a comfortable big creature, and belonged to the house doubtless,
for he stared at her with an interested, questioning look. Presently he
moved. She repeated her invitation, whereon the cat slowly rose to his
feet, humped his back and yawned, then deliberately turned quite round,
facing the other way, and resumed his watchful attitude, his tail tucked
in and his ears folded back close, as if to give the cold wind as little
purchase as possible. Baubie felt snubbed and lonely, and drawing back
from the window she sat down on the edge of her bed to wait events.

Accustomed as she was to excitement, the experiences of the last few
days were of a nature to affect even stronger nerves than hers, and the
unwonted bodily sensations caused by the bath and change of garments
seemed to intensify her consciousness of novelty and restraint. There
was another not very pleasant sensation