of her bodice. The two girls looked at one another, a deliberate
interchange of glances that was at the same time, upon both sides, an
intense scrutiny. Emmy was breathing heavily; Jenny's nostrils were
pinched.

"Well," at last said Jenny, drawlingly. "Didn't you hear the knock?
Aren't you going to answer it?" She reached as she spoke to the hat
lying upon the plate rack above the gas stove, looking fixedly away from
her sister. Her air of gravity was unchanged. Emmy, hesitating, made as
if to speak, to implore something; but, being repelled, she turned, and
went thoughtfully across the kitchen to the front door. Jenny carried
her hat into the kitchen and sat down at the table as before. The
half-contemptuous smile had reappeared in her eyes; but her mouth was
quite serious.


iii

Pa Blanchard had worked as a boy and man in a large iron foundry. He had
been a very capable workman, and had received as the years went on the
maximum amount (with overtime) to be earned by men doing his class of
work. He had not been abstemious, and so he had spent a good deal of his
earnings in what is in Kennington Park called "pleasure"; but he had
also possessed that common kind of sense which leads men to pay money
into sick and benefit clubs. Accordingly, his wife's illness and burial
had, as he had been in the habit of saying, "cost him nothing." They
were paid by his societies. Similarly, when he had himself been attacked
by the paralytic seizure which had wrecked his life, the societies had
paid; and now, in addition to the pension allowed by his old employers,
he received a weekly dole from the societies which brought his income up