He looked down at the tall, black-clad figure, bent in stiff
awkwardness over the smoking grate, and his eyes softened.
Then he took fresh note of the room--the faded,
threadbare carpet, the sparse old furniture that had
seemed ugly to even his uninformed boyish taste,
the dingy walls and begrimed low ceiling--all pathetic
symbols of the bleak life to which she had been condemned.

"Frightens you?" he queried, with a kind of jovial
tenderness, as she got to her feet; "frightens you,
eh? Why, within a month's time, old lady, you'll be
riding in the Park in your own carriage, with niggers
folding their arms up behind, and you'll be taking
it all as easy and as natural as if you'd been born
in a barouche."

He added, in response to the enquiry of her lifted brows:
"Barouche? That's what we'd call in England a landau."

She stood with a foot upon the fender, her tired,
passive face inclined meditatively, her rusty old black
gown drawn back by one hand from the snapping sparks.
"No," she said, slowly, joyless resignation mingling with
pride in her voice. "I was born here over the shop."

"Well, good God! so was I," he commented, lustily.
"But that's no reason why I shouldn't wind up in Park
Lane--or you either."