best she shall get through the time before tea is announced. To match that, my item of news is of a certain little lady who has a habit of tucking up her sleeves, the better to get through hours that are all too short for the work that must fill them, who is afraid to glance at a clock, for fear it should tell her how time is flying; and who never by any chance had a best frock yet that wasn't almost too shabby to wear before it was called best at all. Go on." "Oh—so that's the secret, is it?" exclaimed Mr. Tant, nodding his head like a smooth-plumaged young bird. "There's a woman in Arcadia Street—eh?" [10] [10] "Beware how you speak of her lightly," said Gilbert. "In Arcadia Street are many women; they hang out of the windows, and they scream at their children, and they tell their husbands exactly what their opinion is concerning the characters of those husbands whenever the unfortunate men are not at work. But—mark the difference, my Tant!—there is but one woman worthy of the name, and I have found her. She lives next door." "Then I've seen her," replied Jordan Tant. "Rather pretty, perhaps—but pale and shabby." "Ah—she hadn't got her best frock on," said Gilbert. "You have to wait for Sundays to see the best frock; and then you have to pretend that it isn't really an old frock pretending to be best. Where did you see her?" "Sticking a card in the window—something about apartments or—lodgings," said Mr. Tant. "I think she thought there was some chance that I might be insane enough to want to live in Arcadia Street." "Poor little girl!" said Gilbert softly, as he seated himself on the edge of the table, and thrust some of his papers out of the way. "She dreams about lodgers—and hopes for the sort that pay. I believe she gets up in the morning, dreadfully afraid that those who owe her money have run away in the night; I believe she goes to bed at night, wondering if by any possibility she can squeeze another bedstead in somewhere to accommodate a fresh one. She would like to go out into the highways and byways, and gather in all possible lodgers, and drive them before her to the house; and keep 'em there[11] for ever. You've only got to say 'Lodgers!' to that girl, and her eyes brighten at once." [11] "What an extraordinary person!" exclaimed Mr. Jordan Tant, opening his eyes very wide, and staring
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