‘They’ll allow her out in another week,’ she pursued.  ’But, of course, she can’t expect to be fit for anything for a time.  And I very much doubt whether she’ll ever get the right use of her limbs again.  But what we have to think of now is to get her some decent clothing.  The poor thing has positively nothing.  I’m going to speak to Mrs. Doubleday, and a few other people.  Really, Mr. Bird, if it weren’t that I’ve presumed on your good nature so often lately—­’

She paused and smiled unctuously at him.

‘I’m afraid I can’t do much,’ faltered Thomas, reddening at the vision of a new ‘chimney-pot.’

’No, no; of course not.  I’m sure I should never expect—­it’s only that every little—­however little—­does help, you know.’

Thomas thrust a hand into his pocket and brought out a florin, which Mrs. Pritchard pursed with effusive thanks.

Certain of this good woman’s critics doubted her competence as a trustee, but Thomas Bird had no such misgiving.  He talked with kindly interest of the unfortunate girl, and wished her well in a voice that carried conviction.

His lodgings were a pair of very small, mouldy, and ill-furnished rooms; he took them unwillingly, overcome by the landlady’s doleful story of their long lodgerless condition, and, in the exercise of a heavenly forbearance, remained year after year.  The woman did not cheat him, and Thomas knew enough of life to respect her for this remarkable honesty; she was simply an ailing, lachrymose slut, incapable of effort.  Her son, a lad who had failed in several employments from sheer feebleness of mind and body, practically owed his subsistence to Thomas Bird, whose good offices had at length established the poor fellow at a hairdresser’s.  To sit frequently for an hour at a time, as Thomas did, listening with attention to Mrs. Batty’s talk of her own and her son’s ailments, was in itself a marvel of charity.  This evening she met him as he entered, and lighted him into his room.

’There’s a letter come for you, Mr. Bird.  I put it down somewheres—­why, now, where did I—?  Oh, ’ere it is.  You’ll be glad to ’ear as Sam did his first shave to-day, an’ his ‘and didn’t tremble much neither.’

Burning with desire to open the letter, which he saw was from Mrs. Warbeck, Thomas stood patiently until the flow of words began to gurgle away amid groans and pantings.

‘Well,’ he cried gaily, ’didn’t I promise Sam a shilling when he’d done his first shave?  If I didn’t I ought to have done, and here it is for him.’

Then he hurried into the bedroom, and read his letter by candle-light.  It was a short scrawl on thin, scented, pink-hued notepaper.  Would he do Mrs. Warbeck the ‘favour’ of looking in before ten to-night?  No explanation of this unusually worded request; and Thomas fell at once into a tremor of anxiety.  With a hurried glance at his watch, he began to make ready for the visit, struggling with drawers which would neither open nor shut, and driven to despair by the damp condition of his clean linen.