was asked. Assuredly no one had ever dared to tell her that her lodgings
were 'filthy'--any ordinary person who had ventured upon such an insult
would have been overwhelmed with clamorous retort. But Miss Rodney, with a
pleasant smile and nod, went her way, and Mrs. Turpin stood at the open
door gazing after her, bewildered 'twixt satisfaction and resentment.

She was an easy-going, wool-witted creature, not ill-disposed, but
sometimes mendacious and very indolent. Her life had always been what it
was now--one of slatternly comfort and daylong gossip, for she came of a
small tradesman's family, and had married an artisan who was always in
well-paid work. Her children were two daughters, who, at seventeen and
fifteen, remained in the house with her doing little or nothing, though
they were supposed to 'wait upon the lodgers.' For some months only two of
the four rooms Mrs. Turpin was able to let had been occupied, one by 'young
Mr. Rawcliffe,' always so called, though his age was nearly thirty, but, as
was well known, he belonged to the 'real gentry,' and Mrs. Turpin held him
in reverence on that account. No matter for his little weaknesses--of which
evil tongues, said Mrs. Turpin, of course made the most. He might be
irregular in payment; he might come home 'at all hours,' and make
unnecessary noise in going upstairs; he might at times grumble when his
chop was ill-cooked; and, to tell the truth, he might occasionally be 'a
little too free' with the young ladies--that is to say, with Mabel and Lily
Turpin; but all these things were forgiven him because he was 'a real
gentleman,' and spent just as little time as he liked daily in a
solicitor's office.

Miss Rodney arrived early on Saturday afternoon. Smiling and silent, she
saw her luggage taken up to the bedroom; she paid the cabman; she beckoned
her landlady into the parlour, which was on the ground-floor front.