Having on the spur of the moment devised this ingenious difficulty for the child, who was sure to suffer in many ways from such a conflict of authorities, Clem began to consider how she should spend her evening.  After all, Jane was too poor-spirited a victim to afford long entertainment.  Clem would have liked dealing with some one who showed fight—­some one with whom she could try savage issue in real tooth-and-claw conflict.  She had in mind a really exquisite piece of cruelty, but it was a joy necessarily postponed to a late hour of the night.  In the meantime, it would perhaps be as well to take a stroll, with a view of meeting a few friends as they came away from the work-rooms.  She was pondering the invention of some long and hard task to be executed by Jane in her absence, when a knocking at the house-door made itself heard.  Clem at once went up to see who the visitor was.

A woman in a long cloak and a showy bonnet stood on the step, protecting herself with an umbrella from the bitter sleet which the wind was now driving through the darkness.  She said that she wished to see Mrs. Hewett.

‘Second-floor front,’ replied Clem in the offhand, impertinent tone wherewith she always signified to strangers her position in the house.

The visitor regarded her with a look of lofty contempt, and, having deliberately closed her umbrella, advanced towards the stairs.  Clem drew into the back regions for a few moments, but as soon as she heard the closing of a door in the upper part of the house, she too ascended, going on tip-toe, with a noiselessness which indicated another side of her character.  Having reached the room which the visitor had entered, she brought her ear close to the keyhole, and remained in that attitude for a long time—­nearly twenty minutes, in fact.  Her sudden and swift return to the foot of the stairs was followed by the descent of the woman in the showy bonnet.

‘Miss Peckover I’ cried the latter when she had reached the foot of the stairs.

‘Well, what is it?’ asked Clem, seeming to come up from the kitchen.

’Will you ‘ave the goodness to go an’ speak to Mrs. Hewett for a hinstant?’ said the woman, with much affectation of refined speech.

‘All right!  I will just now, if I’ve time.’

The visitor tossed her head and departed, whereupon Clem at once ran upstairs.  In five minutes she was back in the kitchen.

’See ‘ere,’ she addressed Jane.  ’You know where Mr. Kirkwood works in St. John’s Square?  You’ve been before now.  Well, you’re to go an’ wait at the door till he comes out, and then you’re to tell him to come to Mrs. Hewett at wunst.  Understand?—­Why ain’t these tea-things all cleared away?  All right Wait till you come back, that’s all.  Now be off, before I skin you alive!’

On the floor in a corner of the kitchen lay something that had once been a girl’s hat.  This Jane at once snatched up and put on her head.  Without other covering, She ran forth upon her errand.