“Well, well,” she said, “come in, Glad, bless yer.”

“I’ve brought a gent to ’ear yer talk a bit,” Glad explained informally.

The small old woman raised her twinkling old face to look at him.

“Ah!” she said, as if summing up what was before her. “’E thinks it’s worse than it is, doesn’t ’e, now?  Come in, sir, do.”

This time it struck Dart that her look seemed actually to anticipate the evolving of some wonderful and desirable thing from himself.  As if even his gloom carried with it treasure as yet undisplayed.  As she knew nothing of the ten sovereigns, he wondered what, in God’s name, she saw.

The poverty of the little square room had an odd cheer in it.  Much scrubbing had removed from it the objections manifest in Glad’s room above.  There was a small red fire in the grate, a strip of old, but gay carpet before it, two chairs and a table were covered with a harlequin patchwork made of bright odds and ends of all sizes and shapes.  The fog in all its murky volume could not quite obscure the brightness of the often rubbed window and its harlequin curtain drawn across upon a string.

“Bless yer,” said Miss Montaubyn, “sit down.”

Dart sat and thanked her.  Glad dropped upon the floor and girdled her knees comfortably while Miss Montaubyn took the second chair, which was close to the table, and snuffed the candle which stood near a basket of colored scraps such as, without doubt, had made the harlequin curtain.

“Yer won’t mind me goin’ on with me bit o’ work?” she chirped.

“Tell ’im wot it is,” Glad suggested.

“They come from a dressmaker as is in a small way,” designating the scraps by a gesture.  “I clean up for ‘er an’ she lets me ’ave ’em.  I make ’em up into anythink I can—­pin-cushions an’ bags an’ curtings an’ balls.  Nobody’d think wot they run to sometimes.  Now an’ then I sell some of ’em.  Wot I can’t sell I give away.”

“Drunken Bet’s biby plays with ’er ball all day,” said Glad.

“Ah!” said Miss Montaubyn, drawing out a long needleful of thread, “Bet, she thinks it worse than it is.”

“Could it be worse?” asked Dart.  “Could anything be worse than everything is?”

“Lots,” suggested Glad; “might ’ave broke your back, might ’ave a fever, might be in jail for knifin’ someone.  ’E wants to ’ear you talk, Miss Montaubyn; tell ’im all about yerself.”

“Me!” her expectant eyes on him. “’E wouldn’t want to ’ear it.  I shouldn’t want to ‘ear it myself.  Bein’ on the ’alls when yer a pretty girl ain’t an ‘elpful life; an’ bein’ took up an’ dropped down till yer dropped in the gutter an’ don’t know ’ow to get out—­it’s wot yer mustn’t let yer mind go back to.”

“That’s wot the lidy said,” called out Glad.  “Tell ’im about the lidy.  She doesn’t even know who she was.”  The remark was tossed to Dart.

“Never even ’eard ’er name,” with unabated cheer said Miss Montaubyn.  “She come an’ she went an’ me too low to do anything but lie an’ look at ‘er and listen.  An’ ‘Which of us two is mad?’ I ses to myself.  But I lay thinkin’ and thinkin’—­an’ it was so cheerfle I couldn’t get it out of me ’ead—­nor never ’ave since.”