A close observer would have seen that her soul was far away from her surroundings. A rapt smile crossed her face, and a light came into her eyes that nothing in Bone Alley would draw there. Then she gave her thin shoulders a little shake, and frowned. "Peggy, you're gettin' up too high; come down!" She was accustomed to talk to herself. There was no one near her. Further down, a barrel-organ was surrounded by a circle of dancing children. "You'd best be movin', Peg," she continued. "Aunt will be callin' yer." Slowly she got up, and then, with a little stretch of her long thin limbs, she shuffled up a steep staircase through an open doorway. Up, up, up! Three long flights of stairs. Different smells issued from the many doors she passed, and one could pretty well guess from them the employments of the occupants within—soapsuds, cabbage, fried bacon, and fried fish. Nearly every one at this time seemed to be cooking, for it was one o'clock, and dinners were about to be served. At the very top floor Peggy paused. Not for breath, for her lungs and heart were sound; but her words explained it. "Now, Peg, don't you say nothink at all when she rows yer—nothink, or you won't get out agen!" She opened the door abruptly. It was a poor-looking room, but clean and tidy. A bed near the window contained a cripple woman, who was knitting away busily. She looked round at the child with a heavy frown, and her voice had a peevish nagging note in it. "How much longer am I to wait for yer, I'd like ter know? Look at the fire, you lazy baggage! You be no more use to me since yer left school than you were before. What 'ave you been a-doin'? Me, slavin' and knittin' myself silly to give you food and clothes, and you out in the streets from morn to night! Dancin' round that organ, I'll be bound! Oh, if I were given the use of my legs agen, wouldn't I make you dance to a different toon!" Peggy said nothing, but with a clatter and bustle she made up the fire, and then prepared the midday meal. Potatoes and half a herring, with a cup of tea, formed their dinner. Mrs. Perkins kept up a running stream of complaints and abuse, which Peggy hardly seemed to hear. She washed up, tidied the hearth, fetched her aunt some more wool from a drawer, and then slipped away towards the door. "Where are you goin'?" demanded Mrs. Perkins. "I'll be wantin' you to take a parcel for me to the shop, an' Mrs. Jones have bin in to arsk yer to mind her baby. She have to go to 'orspital for her eye-dressin'!" "I'll mind her baby now," said Peggy cheerfully, "and then I'll be ready for yer parcel!" She ran down the stairs unheeding the remainder of her aunt's talk. On the next floor she met a stout woman, just opening her mouth for a call. "I'm a-comin', Mrs. Jones. Was you wantin' me? Where's h'Arthur? Shall I take him out?"