ow
mother summonsed father this mornin'?'

'Yes, I've heard. All right! come if you can; I'll ho there.'

Pennyloaf hastened on. She was a meagre, hollow-eyed, bloodless girl of
seventeen, yet her features had a certain charm--that dolorous kind of
prettiness which is often enough seen in the London needle-slave. Her
habitual look was one of meaningless surprise; whatever she gazed upon
seemed a source of astonishment to her, and when she laughed, which was
not very often, her eyes grew wider than ever. Her attire was
miserable, but there were signs that she tried to keep it in order; the
boots upon her feet were sewn and patched into shapelessness; her limp
straw hat had just received a new binding.

By saying that she had things 'to put away,' she meant that her
business was with the pawnbroker, who could not receive pledges after
eight o'clock. It wanted some ten minutes of the hour when she entered
a side-doorway, and, by an inner door, passed into one of a series of
compartments constructed before the pawnbroker's counter. She deposited
her bundle, and looked about for someone to attend to her. Two young
men were in sight, both transacting business; one was conversing
facetiously with a customer on the subject of a pledge. Two or three
gas-jets lighted the interior of the shop, but the boxes were in
shadow. There was a strong musty odour; the gloom, the narrow
compartments, the low tones of conversation, suggested stealth and
shame.

Pennyloaf waited with many signs of impatience, until one of the
assistants approached, a smartly attired youth, with black hair greased
into the discipline he deemed becoming, with an aquiline nose, a coarse
mouth, a large horseshoe pin adorning his necktie, and rings on his
fingers. He caught hold of the packet and threw it open; it consisted
of a petticoat and the skirt of an old dress.

'Well, what is it?' he asked, rubbing his tongue along his upper lip
before and after speaking.

'Three an' six, please, sir.'

He rolled the things up again with a practised turn of the hand, and
said indifferently, glancing towards another box, 'Eighteenpence.'

'Oh, sir, we had two shillin's on the skirt not so long ago,' pleaded
Pennyloaf, with a subservient voice. 'Make it twoshillin's--please do,
sir!

The young man paid no attention; he was curling his moustache and
exchanging a smile of intelligence with his counter-companion with
respect to a piece of business the latter had in