lane in which they halted. The road was thick with mud and filth; the
pavement and the doorways of the houses were filled with ill-clad sickly
children, the houses themselves looked forbidding and unclean. The
bread-stealer and his wife were recognised by half a dozen coarse women,
who, half intoxicated, thronged the entrance to the house opposite to
that in which they lodged, and a significant laugh and nod of the head
were the greetings with which they received the released one back again.
There was little heart or sympathy in the movement, and the wretched
couple understood it so. The woman had dried her tears--both held down
their heads--even there--for shame, and both crawled into the hole in
which, for their children's sake, they _lived_, and were content to find
their home. Now, then, it was time to retrace my steps. It was, but I
could not move from the spot--that is, not retreat from it, as yet. There
was something to do. My conscience cried aloud to me, and, thank God, was
clamorous till I grew human and obedient. I entered the house. A child
was sitting at the foot of the stairs, her face and arms begrimed--her
black hair hanging to her back foul with disease and dirt. She was about
nine years old; but evil knowledge, cunning duplicity, and the rest, were
glaring in her precocious face. She clasped her knees with her extended
hands, and swinging backwards and forwards, sang, in a loud and impudent
voice, the burden of an obscene song. I asked this creature if a man
named Warton dwelt there. She ceased her song, and commenced
whistling--then stared me full in the face and burst into loud laughter.

"What will you give if I tell you?" said she, with a bold grin. "Will you
stand a glass of gin?"

I shuddered. At the same moment I heard a loud coughing, and the voice of
the man himself overhead. I ascended the stairs, and, as I did so, the
girl began her song again, as if she had suffered no interruption. I