The following day was Saturday, and therefore a half-holiday.  After dinner, Miss Rutherford prepared herself for walking, and left home.  A quarter of an hour brought her to a little out-of-the-way thoroughfare called Boston Street, close to the west side of Regent’s Park, and here she entered a chemist’s shop, over which stood the name Smales.  A middle-aged man of very haggard and feeble appearance stood behind the counter, and his manner to the lady as she addressed him was painfully subservient.  He spoke very little above a whisper, and as though suffering from a severe sore throat, but it was his natural voice.

“She’s better, I thank you, madam; much better, I hope and believe; yes, much better.”

He repeated his words nervously, rubbing his hands together feverishly the while, and making his eye-brows go up and down in a curious way.

“Might I see her for a few moments?”

“She would be happy, madam, very happy:  oh yes, I am sure, very happy If—­if you would have the kindness to come round, yes, round here, madam, and—­and to excuse our poor sitting-room.  Thank you, thank you.  Harriet, my dear, Miss Rutherford has had the great, the very great, goodness to visit you—­to visit you personally—­yes.  I will leave you, if—­if you please—­h’m, yes.”

He shuffled away in the same distressingly nervous manner, and closed the door behind him.  The schoolmistress found herself in a dark little parlour, which smelt even more of drugs than the shop itself.  The window looked out into a dirty back-yard, and was almost concealed with heavy red curtains.  As the eyes got accustomed to the dimness, one observed that the floor was covered with very old oil-cloth, and that the articles of furniture were few, only the most indispensable, and all very shabby.  Everything seemed to be dusty and musty.  The only approach to an ornament was a framed diploma hanging over the mantelpiece, certifying that John Alfred Smales was a duly qualified pharmaceutical chemist.  A low fire burned in the grate, and before it, in a chair which would probably have claimed the title of easy, sat the girl Harriet Smales, her head in bandages.

She received Miss Rutherford rather sulkily, and as she moved, groaned in a way which did not seem the genuine utterance of pain.  After a few sympathetic remarks, the teacher began to touch upon the real object of her visit.

“I have no intention of blaming you, Harriet; I should not speak of this at all, if it were not necessary.  But I must ask you plainly what reason you had for speaking of Ida Starr’s mother as they say you did.  Why did you say she was a bad woman?”

“It’s only what she is,” returned Harriet sullenly, and with much inward venom.

“What do you mean by that?  Who has told you anything about her?”

Only after some little questioning the fact was elicited that Harriet owed her ideas on the subject to a servant girl in the house, whose name was Sarah.