’I can ask her and see.  It ’ud be a rare treat for us.  I feel myself as if I couldn’t hold up much longer, it’s that hot!’

She threw a glance towards the bar.

‘Will you have a bottle o’ lemonade?’ Daniel asked.

‘It’s very kind of you.  I’ve a sort o’ fainty feeling.  If you’d just put ever such a little drop in it, Mr. Dabbs.’

Daniel betrayed a slight annoyance.  But he went to the door and gave the order.

‘Still at the same place?’ he asked on resuming his seat.

’Emma, you mean?  Yes, but it’s only been half a week’s work, this last.  And I’ve as good as nothing to do.  There’s the children runnin’ about with no soles to their feet.’

The lemonade—­with a dash in it—­was brought to her, and she refreshed herself with a deep draught.  Perhaps the dash was not perceptible enough; she did not seem entirely satisfied, though pretending to be so.

‘Suppose I come round to-night and ask her myself?’ Daniel said, as the result of a short reflection.

’It ’ud be kind of you if you would, Mr. Dabbs.  I’m afraid she’ll tell me she can’t afford to lose the day.’

He consulted his watch, then again reflected, still drumming on the table.

‘All right, we’ll go,’ he said, rising from his chair.

His coat was hanging on a peg behind the door.  He drew it on, and went to tell the barmaid that he should be absent exactly twenty minutes.  It was Daniel’s policy to lead his underlings to expect that he might return at any moment, though he would probably be away a couple of hours.

The sisters were now living in a street crossing the angle between Goswell Road and the City Road.  Daniel was not, as a rule, lavish in his expenditure, but he did not care to walk any distance, and there was no line of omnibuses available.  He took a hansom.

It generally fell to Emma’s share to put her sister’s children to bed, for Mrs. Clay was seldom at home in the evening.  But for Emma, indeed, the little ones would have been sadly off for motherly care.  Kate had now and then a fit of maternal zeal, but it usually ended in impatience and slappings; for the most part she regarded her offspring as encumbrance, and only drew attention to them when she wished to impress people with the hardships of her lot.  The natural result was that the boy and girl only knew her as mother by name; they feared her, and would shrink to Emma’s side when Kate began to speak crossly.

All dwelt together in one room, for life was harder than ever.  Emma’s illness had been the beginning of a dark and miserable time.  Whilst she was in the hospital her sister took the first steps on the path which leads to destruction; with scanty employment, much time to kill, never a sufficiency of food, companions only too like herself in their distaste for home duties and in the misery of their existence, poor Kate got into the habit of straying