“Well, but you’re well educated—­and—­”

He was going to say “pretty,” but her look stopped him.

It was almost a look of reproach.

“Do you think I’m the only fairly-educated girl in London who doesn’t know how to get a living?  Haven’t you ever found, in poor, wretched little shops, girls who speak well, look different from the others?  Don’t you know that there are lots of girls like me who are provided for, well provided for at the outset, and then forgotten, or neglected, and left to starve, to drift, to get on the best way they can?  Oh, surely you must know that!  Only people like you don’t care to think about these things.  And you are quite right, quite right.  Why should you?”

Suddenly the girl sprang up and made a gesture with her hands as if to dismiss the subject.  Max, watching her with eager interest, saw pass quickly over her face a look which set him wondering on whose countenance he had seen it before.  In an instant it was gone, leaving a look of weariness behind.  But it set him wondering.  Who was she?  Who were the mysterious parents of whom she knew nothing?

Carrie glanced at the door which led into the outhouse.  The tapping of a stick on the stone-flagged floor announced the approach of “Granny” at last.  The girl ran to open the door.

Max had sprung up from his chair, full of curiosity to see the old lady of whom Carrie seemed to be somewhat in awe.

He was rather disappointed.  There was nothing at all formidable or dignified about Mrs. Higgs, who was a round-shouldered, infirm old woman in a brown dress, a black-and-white check shawl, and a rusty black bonnet.

She stopped short on seeing Max, and proceeded, still standing in the doorway, to scrutinize with candid interest every detail of his appearance.  When she had satisfied herself, she waved her stick as an intimation to him that he could sit down again, and, leaning on the arm of the young girl, crossed the room, still without a word, and took her seat in the one arm-chair.

As Carrie had said, there was nothing singular or marked about her face or figure by which one could have distinguished her from the general run of old women of her modest but apparently respectable class.  A little thin, whitish hair, parted in the middle, showed under her bonnet; her eyes, of the faded no-color of the old, stared unintelligently out of her hard, wrinkled face; her long, straight, hairy chin, rather hooked nose and thin-lipped mouth made an ensemble which suggested a harmless, tedious old lady who could “nag” when she was not pleased.

Conversation was not her strong point, evidently, or, perhaps, the presence of a stranger made her shy.  For, to all Carrie’s remarks and inquiries, she vouchsafed only nods in reply, or the shortest of answers in a gruff voice and an ungracious tone.

“Who is he?” she asked at last, when she had begun to sip her cup of tea.