race-horses and Roman Catholic saints; red-and white-draped Madonnas elbowed the “full-dress” heroines of the penny weeklies.  It was a curious gallery, and a good many of the works of art had the merit of being antique.  Generations of flies had emblazoned their deeds of prowess on the papers:  streaks of candle-grease bore witness to the inquiring turn of mind, attracted by the letter-press, or the artistic proclivities of Kennedy’s lodgers.  It was about two, the dinner-hour probably, which accounted for the presence of so many people in the room.  Most, but not all, seemed to be of the wandering class.  They were variously employed.  Some were sitting on the truckle-beds that ran round the walls; one or two were knitting or sewing; a cripple was mending baskets in one of the windows; and about the fire a group were collected superintending the operations which produced, though not unaided, the odors with which the room was reeking.

Miss Mackenzie stood for a few minutes, unnoticed apparently, looking about her at the motley crowd.  Baubie on entering the room had raised herself for a second on tiptoe to look into a distant corner, and then, remarking to herself, half audibly, “His boords is gane,” subsided, and contented herself with watching Miss Mackenzie’s movements.

There seemed to be no one to do the honors.  The inmates all looked at each other for a moment hesitatingly, then resumed their various occupations.  A young woman, a sickly, livid-faced creature, rose from her place behind the door, and, advancing with a halting step, said to Miss Mackenzie, “Mistress Kennedy’s no’ in, an’ Wishart’s oot wi’s boords.”

“I wanted to see him about this child, who was found begging in the streets to-day.”

Miss Mackenzie looked curiously at the woman, wondering if she could belong in any way to the Wishart family.  She was a miserable object, seemingly in the last stage of consumption.

“Eh, mem,” she answered hurriedly, and drawing nearer, “ye’re a guid leddy, I ken, an’ tak’ t’ lassie away oot o’ this.  The mither’s an awfu’ wuman:  tak’ her away wi’ ye, or she’ll sune be as bad.  She’ll be like mysel’ and the rest o’ them here.”

“I will, I will,” Miss Mackenzie said, shocked and startled, recoiling before the spirit-reeking breath of this warning spectre.  “I will, I will,” she repeated hastily.  There was no use remaining any longer.  She went out, beckoning to Baubie, who was busy rummaging about a bed at the top of the room.

Baubie had bethought her that it was time to take her father his dinner.  So she slipped over to that corner of the big kitchen which was allotted to the Wishart family and possessed herself of a piece of a loaf which was hidden away there.  As she passed by the fire she profited by the momentary abstraction of the people who were cooking to snap up and make her own a brace of unconsidered trifles in the shape of onions which were lying near them.  These, with the piece of bread, she concealed on her person, and then returned to Miss Mackenzie, who was now in the passage.