d no theories then about
social divisions, and the like; but here, I thought, was a man who
would find nobody in the district having anything in common with
himself. By the same token, I thought, had my father been alive this
newcomer would have recognised a possible companion in him. And,
finally, as Mr. Rawlence came to a standstill before me, this absurd
reflection flitted through my mind:

'If he only knew it, there's me! But he will never know--how could
he?'

The absurd vanity and audacity of the thought made me blush like a
bashful schoolgirl. The ridiculous pretentiousness of the thought that
in me, the 'inmate' of St. Peter's, this splendid person could find a
companion, impressed me now so painfully that I felt it must be
plainly visible; that the visitor must see and be scornfully amused by
it. Yet, with really extraordinary cordiality, he was holding out his
right hand in salutation. Here again my awkwardness made me bungle.
What he meant by his gesture I could not think. Some amusing trick,
perhaps. It did not occur to me in that moment of self-abasement that
he wished to shake an 'inmate's' hand.

'Won't you shake?' he asked, with that smile of his--so unlike any
expression one saw on folks' faces at St. Peter's.

'I beg your pardon,' I faltered, and gave him a limp hand, reviling
myself inwardly for conduct which I felt would utterly and for ever
condemn me in this gentleman's eyes. 'Of course,' I told myself,
'he'll be thinking: "What can one expect from these unfortunate
inmates--friendless orphans, living on charity?"' As a fact, I suppose
no man's demeanour could have been less suggestive of any such
uncharitable thought.

'I suspect you thought it like my cheek, yelling at you like that. The
fact is, I had just begun to sketch you. See!'

He showed me his sketch-block, upon which I saw in outline the figure
of a boy carrying pails and leaning over a fence. What chiefly caught
my eye in this was the reproduction of my absurd trousers, one torn
leg reaching midway down the calf, the other in jagged scallops about
my knee. He might have idealised my rags a little, I thought, in my
ignorance. No doubt I had been better pleased if Mr. Rawlence had
endowed me in the sketch with the dress of, say, a smart clerk. And,
apart from the artistic aspect, the man who would sniff at this as
evidence of contemptible snobbishness in me, would take a more lenient
view, perhaps, if he had ever spent a year or t