our purpose, meanwhile expatiating on its excellencies. I was satisfied
with it, and would have settled everything in a few minutes, but Mrs.
Wattles was not to be done out of her jaw.

"I'm sure you'll like this place, my dear, and I'm glad to let it to you,
for I've known your 'usband some time. I used to see 'im come when those
others Germans was 'ere, and----"

"Kosinski is not my husband," I interrupted. "I'm not married."

"Oh, I see, my dear; just keeping company, that's all. Well, I don't
blame yer; of course, 'e is a furriner; but I'm not one to say as
furriners ain't no class. I was in love with an I-talian organ-grinder
myself, when I was a girl, and I might 'ave married 'im for all I know, ef
'e 'adn't got run in for knifin' a slop what was always a aggravatin' 'im,
poor chap. And I don't say but what I shouldn't be as well off as what I
am now, for Wattles, 'e ain't much class."

I ventured some sympathetic interjection and tried to get away, but her
eye was fixed on me and I could not escape.

"It was a long time before I forgot 'im, and when my girl was born I
called 'er Ave Maria, which was a name I used to 'ear 'im say, and a very
pretty one too, though Wattles does say it's a 'eathen-sounding name for
the girl. I was just like you in those days, my dear," she said, surveying
my slim figure with a critical eye. "No one thought I should make old
bones, I was that thin and white, and nothin' seemed to do me no good; I
took physic enough to kill a 'orse, and as for heggs an' such like I eat
'undreds. But, lor', they just went through me like jollop. It was an old
neighbour of ours as cured me; she said, says she, 'What you want, Liza,