been brushed. She wore
a different gown. She looked shrinkingly and fearfully up at me as I
came in.

'You better, little woman?' I said as I began to put down my parcels.
I had tried hard to make the words sound careless and normal,
kindly and cheerful. But I thought as I heard them that a man with a
quinsy might have managed a better tone.

In another moment she was clinging to me somehow, without having risen
to her feet, and sobbing out an incoherent expression of her penitence
and shame. I was tremendously moved. And, while seeking to console
her, my real sympathy for this sobbing child was shot through and
illumined by the most fatuous sort of optimism.

'I've been making a tragedy out of a disagreeable mishap,' I told
myself. 'She is only a child who has made herself ill. The thing won't
happen again, one may be sure. This is a lesson she will never forget.
No one could possibly mistake the genuineness of all this.' By which I
meant her heaving shoulders, streaming eyes, and penitent
self-abasement.

In the process of soothing her, of course, I made light of her
self-confessed baseness. I suppose I spent at least half an hour in
comforting her. Then we supped, with a hint of April gaiety towards
the end. I endeavoured to be humorous in a lover-like way. Fanny
dabbed her eyes, smiled, and choked, and even laughed a little. But
the vows, protestations, resolves for the future--these were all most
solemn and impressive.

And they all held good, too,--for a week and a half. And then our
landlady gave me notice, because in the broad light of mid-afternoon
Fanny had stumbled over the front door-mat on entering the house, and
lain there, laughing and singing; she had refused to move, and had had
to be dragged upstairs for appearance's sake.

The landlady must have occupied ten minutes, I think, in giving me
notice. Almost, I could have struck the poor soul before she was
through with it. When at length she drew breath, and allowed me to
escape, I thought her Cockney dialect the basest and vilest ever
evolved among the tongues of mankind. Yet the good woman was really
very civil, and rather kindly disposed towards me than otherwise, I
think. There was no good reason why I should have felt bitter towards
her. Rather, perhaps, I should have been apologetic. And it was clean
contrary to my nature and disposition, this savage bitterness. But one
of the curses of squalor is that it exacerbates the mildest temper,
co