nor conciliatory: it revealed nothing of the speaker's errand.
Nevertheless, some precautionary instinct warned Lily to withdraw beyond
ear-shot of the hovering parlour-maid.

She signed to Mrs. Haffen to follow her into the drawing-room, and closed
the door when they had entered.

"What is it that you wish?" she enquired.

The char-woman, after the manner of her kind, stood with her arms folded
in her shawl. Unwinding the latter, she produced a small parcel wrapped
in dirty newspaper.

"I have something here that you might like to see, Miss Bart." She spoke
the name with an unpleasant emphasis, as though her knowing it made a
part of her reason for being there. To Lily the intonation sounded like a
threat.

"You have found something belonging to me?" she asked, extending her hand.

Mrs. Haffen drew back. "Well, if it comes to that, I guess it's mine as
much as anybody's," she returned.

Lily looked at her perplexedly. She was sure, now, that her visitor's
manner conveyed a threat; but, expert as she was in certain directions,
there was nothing in her experience to prepare her for the exact
significance of the present scene. She felt, however, that it must be
ended as promptly as possible.

"I don't understand; if this parcel is not mine, why have you asked for
me?"

The woman was unabashed by the question. She was evidently prepared to
answer it, but like all her class she had to go a long way back to make a
beginning, and it was only after a pause that she replied: "My husband
was janitor to the Benedick till the first of the month; since then he
can't get nothing to do."

Lily remained silent and she continued: "It wasn't no fault of our own,
neither: the agent had another man he wanted the place for, and we was
put out, bag and baggage, just to suit his fancy. I had a long sickness
last winter, and an operation that ate up all we'd put by; and it's hard
for me and the children, Haffen being so long out of a job."

After all, then, she had come only to ask Miss Bart to find a place for
her husband; or, more probably, to seek the young lady's intervention
with Mrs. Peniston. Lily had such an air of always getting what she
wanted that she was used to being appealed to as an intermediary, and,
relieved of her vague apprehension, she took refuge in the conventional
formula.

"I am sorry you have been in trouble," she said.

"Oh, that we have, Miss, and it's on'y just beginning. If on'y we'd 'a
got anoth