h!" said the woman, in a loud voice; "with their cabs, indeed,
a-comin' every day: there'll be kerridges next!"

"Just you come and go on with your job," said Barney, with a snarl.

"I'm coming!" said the woman, sharply. Then to the cabman--"You can go
this way;" and she flung open a side door and called up the
stairs--"Here, Mrs Lane, another cab's come for you. There, I s'pose
you can go up," she added; and then, in a voice loud enough to be heard
upstairs, "if people would only pay their way instead of riding in cabs,
it would be better for some of us."

A door had been heard to open on the first floor, and then, as the
vinegary remark of Mrs Sturt rose, voices were heard whispering. The
cabman went straight up the uncarpeted stairs, to pause before the
half-open door, as he heard, in a low conversation, the words--

"Mamma--dear mamma, pray don't notice it."

The next moment the door opened fully, and the pale, worn-looking woman
of the accident stood before the cabman, who shuffled off his hat, and
stood bowing.

"Jenkles, mum," he said--"Samuel Jenkles, nine 'underd seven six, as
knocked you down in Pall Mall."

The woman stepped back and laid her hand upon her side, seeming about to
fall, when the cabman started forward and caught her, helping her to a
chair in the shabbily-furnished room, as the door swung to.

"Oh, mamma," cried a girl of about seventeen, springing forward, the
work she had been engaged upon falling on the floor.

"It is nothing, my dear," gasped the other; though her cheek was ashy
pale, and the dew gathered on her forehead.

"She's fainting, my dear," said the cabman. "Got anything in the
house?"

"Yes, some water," said the girl, supporting the swooning woman, and
fanning her face.

"Water!" ejaculated the cabman, in a tone of disgust. "Here, I'll be
back directly."

He caught up a little china mug from a side table, and ran out, nearly
upsetting Mrs Sturt on the landing and Barney at the foot of the
stairs, to return at the end of a few minutes, and find the passage
vacant; so he hastily ran up, to see that Mrs Lane had come to in his
absence, though she looked deadly pale.

"Here, mum," he said, earnestly, "drink this; don't be afeard, it's port
wine. A drop wouldn't do you no harm neither, Miss," he added, as he
glanced at the pale, thin face and delicate aspect of the girl.

Mrs Lane put the mug to her lips, and then made an effort, and sat up.

"You was hurt, t