articular district."--She named it.--"It
is hard work--and not particularly good for the nerves."

She smiled, but at the same moment she turned extremely white, and as
she fell back in her chair, Diana saw her clinch her hand as though in
a strong effort for physical self-control.

Diana sprang up.

"Let me get you some water!"

"Don't go. Don't tell anybody. Just open that window." Diana obeyed, and
the northwest wind, sweeping in, seemed to revive her pale companion
almost at once.

"I am very sorry!" said Miss Vincent, after a few minutes, in her
natural voice. "Now I am all right." She drank some water, and
looked up.

"Shall I tell you the story he told me? It is very short, and it might
change your view of him."

"If you feel able--if you are strong enough," said Diana, uncomfortably,
wondering why it should matter to Miss Vincent or anybody else what view
she might happen to take of Mr. Barton.

"He said he remembered his father (who was a house-painter--a very
decent and hard-working man) having been out of work for eight weeks. He
used to go out looking for work every day--and there was the usual
story, of course, of pawning or selling all their possessions--odd
jobs--increasing starvation--and so on. Meanwhile, _his_ only
pleasure--he was ten--was to go with his sister after school to look at
two shops in the East India Dock Road--one a draper's with a 'Christmas
Bazaar'--the other a confectioner's. He declares it made him not more
starved, but less, to look at the goodies and the cakes; they _imagined_
eating them; but they were both too sickly, he thinks, to be really
hungry. As for the bazaar, with its dolls and toys, and its Father
Christmas, and bright lights, they both thought it paradise. They used
to flatten their noses against the glass; sometimes a shopman drove
them away; but they came back and back. At last the iron shutters would
come down--slowly. Then he and his sister would stoop--and stoop--to get
a last look. Presently there would be only a foot of bliss left; then
they both sank down flat on their stomachs on the pavement, and so
stayed--greedily--till all was dark, and paradise had been swallowed up.
Well, one night, the show had been specially gorgeous; they took hands
afterward, and ran home. Their father had just come in. Mr. Barton can
remember his staggering into the room. I'll give it in his words.
'Mother, have you got anything in the house?' 'Nothing, Tom.' And mother
be