NOT ALONE.


It had been a close and sultry day--one of the hottest of the
dog-days--even out in the open country, where the dusky green leaves had
never stirred upon their stems since the sunrise, and where the birds had
found themselves too languid for any songs beyond a faint chirp now and
then. All day long the sun had shone down steadily upon the streets of
London, with a fierce glare and glowing heat, until the barefooted
children had felt the dusty pavement burn under their tread almost as
painfully as the icy pavement had frozen their naked feet in the winter.
In the parks, and in every open space, especially about the cool splash
of the fountains at Charing Cross, the people, who had escaped from the
crowded and unventilated back streets, basked in the sunshine, or sought
every corner where a shadow could be found. But in the alleys and slums
the air was heavy with heat and dust, and thick vapours floated up and
down, charged with sickening smells from the refuse of fish and
vegetables decaying in the gutters. Overhead the small, straight strip of
sky was almost white, and the light, as it fell, seemed to quiver with
the burden of its own burning heat.

Out of one of the smaller thoroughfares lying between Holborn and the
Strand, there opens a narrow alley, not more than six or seven feet
across, with high buildings on each side. In the most part the ground
floors consist of small shops; for the alley is not a blind one, but
leads from the thoroughfare to another street, and forms, indeed, a short
cut to it, pretty often used. These shops are not of any size or
importance--a greengrocer's, with a somewhat scanty choice of vegetables
and fruit, a broker's, displaying queer odds and ends of household goods,
two or three others, and at the end farthest from the chief thoroughfare,