information the young lady might be willing to give with regard to her condition, prospects, and wishes.  Emilia gave none.  She took the woman’s hand, asking permission to remain under her protection.  The woman by-and-by named a sum of money as a sum for weekly payment, and Emilia transferred all to her that she had.  The policeman and his wife thought her, though reasonable, a trifle insane.  She sat at a window for hours watching a ‘last man’ of the fly species walking up and plunging down a pane of glass.  On this transparent solitary field for the most objectless enterprise ever undertaken, he buzzed angrily at times, as if he had another meaning in him, which was being wilfully misinterpreted.  Then he mounted again at his leisure, to pitch backward as before.  Emilia found herself thinking with great seriousness that it was not wonderful for boys to be always teasing and killing flies, whose thin necks and bobbing heads themselves suggested the idea of decapitation.  She said to her hostess:  “I don’t like flies.  They seem never to sing but when they are bothered.”  The woman replied:  “Ah, indeed?” very smoothly, and thought:  “If you was to bust out now, which of us two would be strongest?” Emilia grew distantly aware that the policeman and his wife talked of her and watched her with combined observation.

When it was night she went to keep her appointment.  The girl was there, but the boy came late.  He said he had earned only a few pence that day, and would be beaten.  He spoke in a whimpering tone which caused the girl to desire a translation of his words.  Emilia told her how things were with him, and the girl expressed a wish that she had an organ, as in that case she would be sure to earn more than sixpence a day; such being the amount that procured her nightly a comfortable reception in the arms of her parents.  “Do you like music?” said Emilia.  The girl replied that she liked organs; but, as if to avoid committing an injustice, cited parrots as foremost in her affections.  Holding them both to her breast, Emilia thought that she would rescue them from this beating by giving them the money they had to offer for kindness:  but the restlessness of the children suddenly made her a third party to the thought of cakes.  She had no money.  Her heart bled for the poor little hungry, apprehensive creatures.  For a moment she half fancied she had her voice, and looked up at the windows of the pitiless houses with a bold look; but there was a speedy mockery of her thought “You shall listen:  you shall open!” She coughed hoarsely, and then fell into fits of crying.  Her friend the policeman came by and took her arm with a force that he meant to be persuasive; so lifting her and handing her some steps beyond the limit of his beat, with stern directions for her to proceed home immediately.  She obeyed.  Next day she asked her hostess to lend her half-a-crown.  The woman snapped shortly in answer:  “No; the less you have the better.”  Emilia was obliged to abandon her little people.