The apple-woman took her for a philanthropist paying a surprise visit to one of the families of the house, and resented her as a spy.  She was discussing the meanness of the thing with the pickled-herring dealer next door, while Esther was mounting the dark stairs with the confidence of old habit.  She was making automatically for the garret, like a somnambulist, with no definite object—­morbidly drawn towards the old home.  The unchanging musty smells that clung to the staircase flew to greet her nostrils, and at once a host of sleeping memories started to life, besieging her and pressing upon her on every side.  After a tumultuous intolerable moment a childish figure seemed to break from the gloom ahead—­the figure of a little girl with a grave face and candid eyes, a dutiful, obedient shabby little girl, so anxious to please her schoolmistress, so full of craving to learn and to be good, and to be loved by God, so audaciously ambitious of becoming a teacher, and so confident of being a good Jewess always.  Satchel in hand, the little girl sped up the stairs swiftly, despite her cumbrous, slatternly boots, and Esther, holding her bag, followed her more slowly, as if she feared to contaminate her by the touch of one so weary-worldly-wise, so full of revolt and despair.

All at once Esther sidled timidly towards the balustrade, with an instinctive movement, holding her bag out protectingly.  The figure vanished, and Esther awoke to the knowledge that “Bobby” was not at his post.  Then with a flash came the recollection of Bobby’s mistress—­the pale, unfortunate young seamstress she had so unconscionably neglected.  She wondered if she were alive or dead.  A waft of sickly odors surged from below; Esther felt a deadly faintness coming over her; she had walked far, and nothing had yet passed her lips since yesterday’s dinner, and at this moment, too, an overwhelming terrifying feeling of loneliness pressed like an icy hand upon her heart.  She felt that in another instant she must swoon, there, upon the foul landing.  She sank against the door, beating passionately at the panels.  It was opened from within; she had just strength enough to clutch the door-post so as not to fall.  A thin, careworn woman swam uncertainly before her eyes.  Esther could not recognize her, but the plain iron bed, almost corresponding in area with that of the room, was as of old, and so was the little round table with a tea-pot and a cup and saucer, and half a loaf standing out amid a litter of sewing, as if the owner had been interrupted in the middle of breakfast.  Stay—­what was that journal resting against the half-loaf as for perusal during the meal?  Was it not the London Journal?  Again she looked, but with more confidence, at the woman’s face.  A wave of curiosity, of astonishment at the stylishly dressed visitor, passed over it, but in the curves of the mouth, in the movement of the eyebrows, Esther renewed indescribably subtle memories.