if he misdemeans hisself with me!... Westminister, sir?" And, screening
his mouth from Mrs. Dallison, he added in a loud whisper: "Execution of
the Shoreditch murderer!"

Cecilia felt suddenly as though the world were listening to her
conversation with these two rather seedy persons.

"I don't really know what I can do for you, Mrs. Hughs. I'll speak to
Mr. Dallison, and to Mr. Hilary too."

"Yes, ma'am; thank you, ma'am."

With a smile which seemed to deprecate its own appearance,
Cecilia grasped her skirts and crossed the road. "I hope I wasn't
unsympathetic," she thought, looking back at the three figures on the
edge of the pavement--the old man with his papers, and his discoloured
nose thrust upwards under iron-rimmed spectacles; the seamstress in her
black dress; the skimpy little boy. Neither speaking nor moving, they
were looking out before them at the traffic; and something in Cecilia
revolted at this sight. It was lifeless, hopeless, unaesthetic.

"What can one do," she thought, "for women like Mrs. Hughs, who always
look like that? And that poor old man! I suppose I oughtn't to have
bought that dress, but Stephen is tired of this."

She turned out of the main street into a road preserved from commoner
forms of traffic, and stopped at a long low house half hidden behind the
trees of its front garden.

It was the residence of Hilary Dallison, her husband's brother, and