“I dunno, y’r gryce.  There wasn’t no religion in it.  They said she’d have to be called somefink, and so they called her that.  Lou was always plenty for ’er till she went there yistiddy.”

“What did she do before yesterday?”

“Sold flowers w’en she could get ’em to sell.  ’Twas when she couldn’t sell her flowers that she piped up sort of dead wild—­for she ’adn’t ‘ad nothin’ to eat, an’ she was fair crusty.  It was then a gentleman, ’e ’eard ‘er singin’ hot, an’ he says, ’That’s good enough for a start,’ ’e says, ‘an’ you come wiv me,’ he says.  ‘Not much,’ Lou says, ‘not if I knows it.  I seed your kind frequent.’  But ’e stuck to it, an’ says, ‘It’s stryght, an’ a lydy will come for you to-morrer, if you’ll be ‘ere on this spot, or tell me w’ere you can be found.’  An’ Lou says, says she, ’You buy my flowers, so’s I kin git me bread-baskit full, an’ then I’ll think it over.’  An’ he bought ’er flowers, an’ give ‘er five bob.  An’ Lou paid rent for both of us wiv that, an’ ‘ad brekfist; an’ sure enough the lydy come next dy an’ took her off.  She’s in the opery now, an’ she’ll ’ave ’er brekfist reg’lar.  I seed the lydy meself.  Her picture ’s on the ’oardings—­”

Suddenly he stopped.  “W’y, that’s ’er—­that’s ’er!” he said, pointing to the mantel-piece.

Stafford followed the finger and the glance.  It was Al’mah’s portrait in the costume she had worn over three years ago, the night when Rudyard Byng had rescued her from the flames.  He had bought it then.  It had been unpacked again by Gleg, and put in the place it had occupied for a day or two before he had gone out of England to do his country’s work—­and to face the bitterest disillusion of his life; to meet the heaviest blow his pride and his heart had ever known.

“So that’s the lady, is it?” he said, musingly, to the boy, who nodded assent.

“Go and have a good look at it,” urged Stafford.

The boy did so.  “It’s ’er—­done up for the opery,” he declared.

“Well, Lulu Luckingham is all right, then.  That lady will be good to her.”

“Right.  As soon as I seed her, I whispers to Lou ’You keep close to that there wall,’ I sez.  ‘There’s a chimbey in it, an’ you’ll never be cold,’ I says to Lou.”

Stafford laughed softly at the illustration.  Many a time the lad snuggled up to a wall which had a warm chimney, and he had got his figure of speech from real life.

“Well, what’s to become of you?” Stafford asked.

“Me—­I’ll be level wiv me rent to-day,” he answered, turning over the two shillings and some coppers in his pocket; “an’ Lou and me’s got a fair start.”

Stafford got up, came over, and laid a hand on the boy’s shoulder.  “I’m going to give you a sovereign,” he said—­“twenty shillings, for your fair start; and I want you to come to me here next Sunday-week to breakfast, and tell me what you’ve done with it.”

“Me—­y’r gryce!” A look of fright almost came into the lad’s face.  “Twenty bob—­me!”