ng on the left
hand from the jail doors--that's the way we must go."

"Oh, what a dark ugly place!" said Eppie. "How it hides the sky!
It's worse than the Workhouse. I'm glad you don't live in this town
now, father. Is Lantern Yard like this street?"

"My precious child," said Silas, smiling, "it isn't a big street like
this. I never was easy i' this street myself, but I was fond o'
Lantern Yard. The shops here are all altered, I think--I can't make
'em out; but I shall know the turning, because it's the third."

"Here it is," he said, in a tone of satisfaction, as they came to a
narrow alley. "And then we must go to the left again, and then
straight for'ard for a bit, up Shoe Lane: and then we shall be at the
entry next to the o'erhanging window, where there's the nick in the
road for the water to run. Eh, I can see it all."

"O father, I'm like as if I was stifled," said Eppie. "I couldn't ha'
thought as any folks lived i' this way, so close together. How pretty
the Stone-pits 'ull look when we get back!"

"It looks comical to _me_, child, now--and smells bad. I can't think
as it usened to smell so."

Here and there a sallow, begrimed face looked out from a gloomy doorway
at the strangers, and increased Eppie's uneasiness, so that it was a
longed-for relief when they issued from the alleys into Shoe Lane,
where there was a broader strip of sky.

"Dear heart!" said Silas, "why, there's people coming out o' the Yard
as if they'd been to chapel at this time o' day--a weekday noon!"

Suddenly he started and stood still with a look of distressed
amazement, that alarmed Eppie. They were before an opening in front of
a large factory, from which men and women were streaming for their
midday meal.

"Father," said Eppie, clasping his arm, "what's the matter?"

But she had to speak again and again before Silas could answer her.

"It's gone, child," he said, at last, in strong agitation--"Lantern
Yard's gone. It must ha' been here, because here's the house with the
o'erhanging window--I know that--it's just the same; but they've made
this new opening; and see that big factory! It's all gone--chapel and
all."

"Come into that little brush-shop and sit down, father--they'll let you
sit down," said Eppie, always on the watch lest one of her father's
strange attacks should come on. "Perhaps the people can tell you all
about it."

But neither from the brush-maker, who had come to Shoe Lane only ten
year