like that of an animal, in her fine eyes, hazy with the trouble that
haunted her mouth. Stephen had the good sense not to press the Sabbath
question, and by degrees drew her story from her.

Her father had been a watchmaker, but, giving way to drink, had been,
as far back as she could remember, entirely dependent on her mother,
who by charing and jobbing managed to keep the family alive. Sara was
then the only child, but, within a few months after her father's
death, her mother died in giving birth to the boy. With her last
breath she had commended him to his sister. Sara had brought him
up--how she hardly knew. He had been everything to her. The child that
her mother had given her was all her thought. Those who start with the
idea "that people with nought are naughty," whose eyes are offended by
rags, whose ears cannot distinguish between vulgarity and wickedness,
and who think the first duty is care for self, must be excused from
believing that Sara Coulter passed through all that had been _decreed_
for her without losing her simplicity and purity. But God is in the
back slums as certainly as--perhaps to some eyes more evidently
than--in Belgravia. That which was the burden of her life--namely, the
care of her brother--was her salvation. After hearing her story, which
he had to draw from her, because she had no impulse to talk about
herself, Stephen went home to turn the matter over in his mind.

The next Sunday, after he had had his dinner, he went out into the
same region, and found himself at Sara's door. She was busy over a
garment of Charley's, who was sitting on the bed with half a loaf in
his hand. When he recognized Stephen he jumped down, and would have
rushed from the room; but changing his mind, possibly because of the
condition of his lower limbs, he turned, and springing into the bed,
scrambled under the counterpane, and drew it over his head.