She descended the three steps leading from the street-level down into
the little paved courtyard below, and rang the basement bell. A moment
and an inner door was unlocked, flung open, and a voice from just
within the grating of the closed iron area-gate asked curtly, "Well,
what's wanted?"

"Is this Mrs.----? I should say, is this the lady of the house?" Martha
Slawson's voice was deep, bland, prepossessing.

"I'm Mrs. Daggett, yes, if that's what you mean."

"That's what I mean. My name's Slawson. Mrs. Sammy Slawson, an' I come
to see you on a little matter of business connected with a young lady
who's been lodgin' in your house--Miss Lang."

Mrs. Daggett stepped forward, and unlatched the iron gate. "Come in,"
she said, in a changed voice, endeavoring to infuse into her acrid
manner the grace of a belated hospitality.

Claire, completely hidden from view behind Martha Slawson's heroic
proportions, followed in her wake like a wee, foreshortened shadow as,
at Mrs. Daggett's invitation, Mrs. Slawson passed through the area
gateway into the malodorous basement hall, and so to the dingy
dining-room beyond. Here a group of grimy-clothed tables seemed to have
alighted in sudden confusion, reminding one of a flock of pigeons
huddled together in fear of the vultures soon to descend on them with
greedy, all-devouring appetites.

"We can just as well talk here as anywhere," announced Mrs. Daggett.