.
The next day he again saw Snowdon, and spoke to him of Mrs. Byass's
rooms. The old man seemed at first indisposed to go so far; but when he
had seen the interior of the house and talked with the landlady, his
objections disappeared. Before another week had passed the two rooms
were furnished in the simplest possible way, and Snowdon brought Jane
from Clerkenwell Close.
Kirkwood came by invitation as soon as the two were fairly established
in their home. He found Jane sitting by the fire in her grandfather's
room; a very little exertion still out-wearied her, and the strange
things that had come to pass had made her habitually silent. She looked
about her wonderingly, seemed unable to realise her position, was
painfully conscious of her new clothes, ever and again started as if in
fear.
'Well, what did I say that night?' was Sidney's greeting. 'Didn't I
tell you it would be all right soon?'
Jane made no answer in words, but locked at him timidly; and then a
smile came upon her face, an expression of joy that could not trust
itself, that seemed to her too boldly at variance with all she had yet
known of life.
CHAPTER VIII
PENNYLOAF CANDY
In the social classification of the nether world--a subject which so
eminently adapts itself to the sportive and gracefully picturesque mode
of treatment--it will be convenient to distinguish broadly, and with
reference to males alone, the two great sections of those who do, and
those who do not, wear collars. Each of these orders would, it is
obvious, offer much scope to an analyst delighting in subtle gradation.
Taking the collarless, bow shrewdly might one discriminate between the
many kinds of neckcloth which our climate renders necessary as a
substitute for the nobler article of attire! The navvy, the scaffolder,
the costermonger, the cab-tout--innumerable would be the varieties of
texture, of fold, of knot, observed in the ranks of unskilled labour.
And among these whose higher station is indicated by the linen or paper
symbol, what a gap between the mechanic with collar attached to a
flannel shirt, and just visible along the top of a black tie, and the
shopman whose pride it is to adorn himself with the very ugliest
neck-encloser put in vogue by aristocratic sanction For such attractive
disquisition I have, unfortunately, no space; it must suffice that I
indicate the two genera. And I was led to do so in thinking of Bob
Hewett.
Bob wore a collar. In the
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