tailor, whose bills were paid by Mrs. Prockter.

"Is Miss Rathbone at home?" asked Emanuel, after a cough.

"Helen?"

"Ye-es."

"Ay," said James, grimly. "Her's quite at home."

"Can I see her?"

James opened more widely the door. "Happen you'd better step inside,"
said he.

"Thanks, Mr. Ollerenshaw. What--er--fine weather we're having!"

James ignored this quite courteous and truthful remark. He shut the
door, went into the kitchen, and called up the stairs: "Helen, a young
man to see ye."

In the bedroom, Helen and Sarah Swetnam had exhausted the Brunt hat, and
were spaciously at sea in an enchanted ocean of miscellaneous gossip
such as is only possible between two highly-educated women who scorn
tittle-tattle. Helen had the back bedroom; partly because the front
bedroom was her uncle's, but partly also because the back bedroom was
just as large as and much quieter than the other, and because she
preferred it. There had been no difficulty about furniture. Even so good
a landlord as James Ollerenshaw is obliged now and then to go to
extremes in the pursuit of arrears of rent, and the upper part of the