.

Wemock had learned that the strap was safer than a knock-down, however,
as a dose of it overnight did not hinder his wife from crawling out of
bed to prepare the breakfast and get to work, whereas a kick such as he
preferred, had been known to disable her for a week, with inconvenient
results as to his own dinners and suppers.

"It's the liquor as does it. 'E's peaceable enough when the liquor's out
of 'im. But their 'ands comes so 'eavy. They don't know how 'eavy their
'ands comes." Thus Mrs. Wemock, standing in the doorway, for the moment
holding Orlando, who resented his transfer with a subdued howl of grief,
and looked anxiously down the alley toward Polly's retreating figure.

"'Ush now an' ma'll give him a winkle. Polly's gone for winkles. It's
winkles we'll 'ave for supper, and a blessing it's there's one thing
cheap and with some taste to it. A penny-'orth even, goes quite a way,
but a penny-'orth ain't much when there's a child to each winkle an' may
be two."

"The churchyard's been a better friend to me than to you," said a thin
and haggard-looking woman, who had come across the street for a look at
Orlando. "Out of my seventeen, there ain't but six left an' one o' them
is in the Colonies. There's small call to wish 'em alive, when there's
nought but sorrow ahead. If we was ladies I suppose it might all be
different."

It was at this point that Polly's question was heard,--Polly, who had
rushed back with the winkles and put the dish into her mother's hand and
caught Orlando as if she had been separated from him hours instead of
minutes. And Orlando in turn put his skinny little arms about her neck.
Whatever might be wrong with his inside, the malady had not reached his
heart, which beat only for Polly, his great dark eyes, hollow with
suffering, fixing themselves on her face with a sort of adoration.

"A lady?" Mrs. Wemock said reflectively, eying her winkles, "there's
more than one kind, Polly. A lady's mostly one that has nought to do but
what she likes, and goes in a carriage for fear she'll soil her feet.
But I've seen real ladies that thought on the poor, and was in and out
among 'em. That kind is 'ard to find, Polly. I never knew but two an'
they're both dead. It's them as has money, that's ladies, and them that
hasn't--why they isn't."

"Then I can't be a lady," said Polly. "I heard Nelly Anderson say she
meant to be a lady."

"Lord keep you from that kind!" said the mother hastily, with a