Alas! poor Tina, she had evidently not expected that the eyes of a critic would be upon it that afternoon, or no doubt she would have bestowed on its arrangement the same care which she had lavished on her dress. The table was covered with a heterogeneous litter of novels, music, and bits of fancy-work, together with stores of old letters and newspapers, of ribbon and coloured lace. These last predominated so much in certain places that the room might have been supposed to belong to a milliner if it had not been for the heaps of yellow novels, which excluded the idea of a career as industrious. The eyes of Mr Lee, which were grey, small and shrewd, gathered in these details with an observant glance; and, putting out his hand, he took up from the table, a large, coloured photograph, which was lying there. It was the portrait of a young man, apparently an actor, attired in a rich, old-fashioned suit; and at the back (at which Mr Lee looked forthwith) were these few words scrawled in the bold writing of a man: ‘FOR THE LOVELY TINA, FROM ONE OF HER SLAVES.’ ‘Hum-hum,’ said Mr Lee, and laid the photograph down. The two women drew closer to him, for though they had not seen the words they observed his darkened brow--without heeding them, he remained for a while with his clenched hand on the table, and his thick grey eyebrows almost meeting above his eyes. And then, turning suddenly, he addressed himself to Mrs Robson, with a hard, abrupt manner, as of one much displeased. ‘Ah, ha! My niece--the young lady that lives here--this is her room, you say?’ Mrs Robson assented with humility. ‘And this--all this--_rubbish_--this belongs to her?’ ‘Yes, sir,’ murmured Mrs Robson, after a pause of some alarm, for the grey eyebrows were threatening, and she did not know what would come next. The eyes of Mr Lee wandered over the yellow covers of the novels, the coloured ribbons and the sheets of music-paper. ‘And this young woman--my niece--tell me what you know about her? How she spends her time here, and all the rest of it?’ His glance wandered past Mrs Robson, and rested upon Alice, who stood near her ample mother like a sapling near a tree; but who hastened to answer with a gravity and precision which her mother would probably not have exhibited. Her manner, however, was not conciliating; she did not approve of her guest or the questions that he asked. ‘Miss Gillan has been here about a week, sir,’ she said, ‘and she has had this room to herself ever since she came. She came from London, we didn’t know nothing of her; the neighbours directed her here, and she has lodged here ever since. It isn’t likely we could tell you much of her; we’ve our work to do, an’ we leave her to herself.’