There were three of them, little pale-faced, grave-eyed girl-children, unmistakable Londoners in their lack of the healthy colouring and sturdy limbs which would have marked country-bred children of their age. The eldest was perhaps eleven; the younger ones, eight and six years old respectively; and it was pretty, as well as pathetic, to see the prematurely motherly care which the eldest sister—whom the little ones called ‘Gertie’—bestowed upon the tiny mite whose responsible protector she seemed to be. When first I noticed them, they were walking demurely round the gravel-path of the square upon which my study window looks out. Each had a skipping-rope dangling loosely from her hands; and the younger ones were evidently intent upon some grave story from the lips of their sister. Presently, they came along the upper side of the garden, towards my window, and I had my first glimpse of their faces. Each was pretty in her childish way. The eldest, tall for her age, slight and dark, had regular features and soft brown eyes, whose naturally pathetic expression was heightened by the deep mourning-frock and crape-trimmed hat which each alike was wearing. The two younger children were less noticeable in appearance, the second being, I fancied, ordinarily a merry, dimpled little maiden, whom, but for some temporary cloud on her spirits, I could more easily have pictured enjoying a good game of romps with some of the other small frequenters of our garden; and the youngest, like Gertrude, a pensive-faced baby, with sadly transparent colouring and fragile figure, betokening constitutional delicacy. It was summer-time; and as they passed beneath my widely opened window, I caught the word ‘Mother’ two or three times repeated, gravely pronounced by Gertie; and I judged, from the reverent expression of the three little faces and from their deep mourning, that she was recalling to the memory of her charges some childish reminiscences of a recently lost parent. I had certainly never seen them before, or, child-worshipper that I was, I could not have failed to recognise them. All the other young people in the garden—from Tommy, surname unknown, aged two, with a penchant for sticky sweetmeats, and an aversion to nurses, to Miss Mildred Holford, verging upon sweet seventeen, and alternating between spasmodic propriety and innate tomboyism—were intimately known to me—by sight, at all events; and in my idle speculations upon the little strangers, I jumped to the conclusion—subsequently verified—that they were new-comers to one of the large empty houses facing mine on the further side of our square.