"I am so sorry, Mr. Herrick, but Hepsy has just gone for the milk," she whispered to Malcolm, who did not seem a bit surprised by the intelligence. He had grown used to these domestic episodes. The milkman was generally late, and Hepsy, otherwise Hephzibah, was for ever on his track with a yellow jug in her hand; they called it the "Hunting of the Snark," for they were wont to treat the minor accidents of life in a playful fashion. "Anna, this is Mrs. Keston," observed Malcolm--"my friend Verity, and Babs." Then Anna, in some confusion and much astonishment, shook hands with this very singular young person. Verity! could this be the Verity that Malcolm had eulogised with such enthusiasm--this little brown girl who was regarding her so gravely and fixedly? Anna was obliged to own afterwards that her appearance had given her a shock. She was so small and sallow and insignificant, and her short curly hair was parted on one side like a boy, and cropped quite closely behind. The baby was small and brown too, a tiny edition of herself, and they both had dark eyes that looked preternaturally solemn; Babs, indeed, wore an injured expression, and a puckered look of anguish spoke of the pangs of hunger and the delinquencies of milkmen. "Babs wants her tea," observed Verity cheerfully; "I am going to give her a crust to amuse her. Will you bring Miss Sheldon into the studio, Mr. Herrick? Amias will be so pleased to see her, though he is very busy. I know your name," she continued smilingly to Anna--she had a fresh clear voice that sounded pleasantly on Anna's ear; "I have heard so much about you, that of course I recognised you directly, though Mr. Herrick did not introduce you properly." Verity spoke with so much ease and frankness that Anna began to feel interested in her; she seemed so utterly oblivious of her shabby cotton dress and ridiculous bib-apron. Babs presented a far more imposing appearance in a white frock and pink ribbons, underneath which the bare little brown feet were peeping. Anna would willingly have made friends with her, but Verity advised her to wait. "Babs will not be sociable until she has had her tea," she remarked; "we had better take no notice of her for the present," and indeed that much-enduring and long-suffering infant was at that moment so reduced by famine as to attempt swallowing her own dimpled fist. "What a capital boy she would make!" thought Anna as she followed Mrs. Keston into the dining-room; for the dark, closely-cropped head and a certain boyish freedom of step and bearing gave her this idea. The dining-room was rather a gloomy apartment; the front windows were high and narrow, and the overhanging balcony rather obscured the light; the folding-doors had been taken away, but though this added to the size of the room, there was no additional cheerfulness gained, as the glass door in the inner room, which once had opened into a pleasant garden, now merely led into a covered way to the studio.