CLARA’S RETURN

Mrs. Eagles, a middle-aged woman of something more than average girth, always took her time in ascending to that fifth storey where she and her husband shared a tenement with the Hewett family.  This afternoon her pause on each landing was longer than usual, for a yellow fog, which mocked the pale glimmer of gas-jets on the staircase, made her gasp asthmatically.  She carried, too, a heavy market-bag, having done her Saturday purchasing earlier than of wont on account of the intolerable weather.  She reached the door at length, and being too much exhausted to search her pocket for the latchkey, knocked for admission.  Amy Hewett opened to her, and she sank on a chair in the first room, where the other two Hewett children were bending over ‘home-lessons’ with a studiousness not altogether natural.  Mrs. Eagles had a shrewd eye; having glanced at Annie and Tom with a discreet smile, she turned her look towards the elder girl, who was standing full in the lamplight.

‘Come here, Amy,’ she said after a moment’s scrutiny.  ’So you will keep doin’ that foolish thing!  Very well, then, I shall have to speak to your father about it; I’m not goin’ to see you make yourself ill and do nothing to prevent you.’

Amy, now a girl of eleven, affected much indignation.

‘Why, I haven’t touched a drop, Mrs. Eagles!’

’Now, now, now, now, now!  Why, your lips are shrivelled up like a bit of o’ dried orange-peel!  You’re a silly girl, that’s what you are!’

Of late Amy Hewett had become the victim of a singular propensity; whenever she could obtain vinegar, she drank it as a toper does spirits.  Inadequate nourishment, and especially an unsatisfied palate, frequently have this result in female children among the poor; it is an anticipation of what will befall them as soon as they find their way to the publichouse.

Having administered a scolding, Mrs. Eagles went into the room which she and her husband occupied.  It was so encumbered with furniture that not more than eight or ten square feet of floor can have been available for movement.  On the bed sat Mr. Eagles, a spare, large-headed, ugly, but very thoughtful-looking man; he and Sidney Kirkwood had been acquaintances and fellow-workmen for some years, but no close intimacy had arisen between them, owing to the difference of their tastes and views.  Eagles was absorbed in the study of a certain branch of political statistics; the enthusiasm of his life was Financial Reform.  Every budget presented to Parliament he criticised with extraordinary thoroughness, and, in fact, with an acumen which would have made him no inefficient auxiliary of the Chancellor himself.  Of course he took the view that the nation’s resources were iniquitously wasted, and of course had little difficulty in illustrating a truth so obvious; what distinguished him from the ordinary malcontent of Clerkenwell Green was his logical faculty and the