bsley as their
property, and they formed a sort of club to sponge on her methodically.
They ran out of tea, sugar and flour, and kept the landlord waiting
while they ran up to borrow a shilling. They each had their own day,
and kept to it, respecting the rights of their friends to a share of
the plunder. None went away empty-handed, and they looked with
unfriendly eyes on any new arrivals who might interfere with their
rights. They thought they deceived the old woman, and the tea and
groceries had a finer flavour in consequence; but they would have been
surprised to know that Mrs Yabsley had herself fixed her allowance from
Jonah at two pounds a week and her rent.

"That's enough money fer me to play the fool with, an' if it don't do
much good, it can't do much 'arm," she had remarked, with a mysterious
smile, when he had offered her anything she needed to live in comfort.

The terrible Miss Perkins had altered all that. She had discovered
that Mrs Harris was paying for a new hat with the shilling a week she
got for Johnny's medicine; that Mrs Thorpe smelt of drink half an hour
after she had got two shillings towards the rent; that Mr Hawkins had
given his wife a black eye for saying that he was strong enough to go
to work again. Mrs Yabsley had listened with a perplexing smile to her
companion's cries of indignation.

"I could 'ave told yer all that meself," she said, "but wot's it
matter? Who am I to sit in judgment on 'em? They know I've got more
money than I want, but they're too proud to ask fer it openly. People
with better shirts on their backs are built the same way, if all I 'ear
is true. I've bin poor meself an' yer may think there's somethin'
wrong in me 'ead, but if I've got a shillin', an' some poor devil's got
nuthin', I reckon I owe 'im sixpence. It isn't likely fer you to
understand such things, bein' brought up in the lap of luxury, but
don't yer run away with the idea that poor people are the only ones who
are ashamed to beg an' willin' to steal."

Mrs Yabsley had asked no questions when she had found Miss Perkins on
the step, but little by little her companion had dropped hints of
former glory, and then launched into a surprising tale. She was the
daughter of a rich man, who had died suddenly, and left her at the
mercy of a stepmother and she had grown desperate and fled, choosing to
earn her own bread till her cousin arrived, who was on his way from
England to marry her. On several occa