f weapon that happened to be
within reach. Further, when the vicious fit took her, she would lock
up pantry and kitchen, and make this hard-working girl go hungry to
bed at night, by way of punishment for some pretended misdeed. And the
astounding thing was that, with all this and more, Fanny retained a
very real affection for her unnatural parent; and used to plead that,
but for the effect of liquor upon her, Mrs. Pelly would be and was a
good mother.

It appeared that Fanny had lost her father when she was about twelve
years old, and ever since that time her mother's extraordinary
attitude towards her had become increasingly harsh and cruel. She
never had a penny of her own, though she did the work of two servants,
and her clothes were mostly home-made make-shifts from discarded
garments of her mother's. When necessity caused her to ask for new
boots, for example, the penalty would be perhaps a week of vile abuse
and bullying, of slaps, pinches, docked meals and other humiliations,
all of which must be endured before the wretched woman would buy a
pair of the cheapest and ugliest shoes obtainable, and fling them to
her daughter from out her market-basket. If they were a misfit, Fanny
would have to suffer them as best she could. Or, in other cases, new
shoes would be refused altogether, and she would be ordered to make
shift with a pair her mother had worn out.

It was only very gradually that I came to know these things. Once,
when I knew no more than that Fanny worked very hard and seldom
stirred out of the house, I chanced to encounter mother and daughter
together on the stairs early on a Sunday evening. The girl looked
pinched and unhappy, and something moved me to make a suggestion I
should hardly have ventured upon then, if the mother had not happened
to be present.

'You look tired, Fanny,' I said. 'Why not come out for a walk in the
park with me? The air would do you good, and perhaps you will have a
bit of dinner somewhere with me before getting back. Do! It would be
quite a charity to a lonely man.'

I saw her tired brown eyes brighten at the thought, and then she
turned timidly in Mrs. Pelly's direction.

'Oh!' said I, on a rather happy inspiration, 'I believe you're one of
the vain people who fancy they are indispensable. I am sure Mrs. Pelly
would be delighted for you to come; wouldn't you, Mrs. Pelly? There
will be no lodgers home till late this fine evening.'

Mrs. Pelly simpered at me, with a ra