“Thank you, my dear. I am glad to see that you pay your debts so readily. It is a good sign, but, alas! appearances are often deceptive;” and her hostess led the way into a small parlour, beautifully neat and well kept. “Sit down,” said the little woman, lifting a dress that she was in process of making from a chair which she offered to Joan, “and take a cup of tea. I was just going to have some myself. Bobby, will you be quiet?” This last remark was addressed to a canary, which was singing at the top of its voice in a cage that hung in the window. “I am afraid that you find him rather shrill,” she went on, nodding towards the canary, “but I have so much to do with silence that I don’t mind the noise.” “Not at all: I like birds,” said Joan. “I am glad of that, my dear, for my name is Bird. Quite a coincidence, isn’t it?—not but what coincidences are deceptive things. And now, here is your tea.” Joan took the tea and drank it thankfully, while Mrs. Bird watched her. “My dear, you are very handsome,” she said at length, “if you will forgive me for making a personal remark— _dreadfully_ handsome. I am sure that, being so handsome, you cannot be happy, since God does not give us everything; and I only hope that you are good. You look good, or I should not have come to help you just now; but it is impossible to put any trust in appearances.” “I am afraid that I am neither very happy nor very good,” answered Joan, “but I am most grateful to you. I have come up from the country to look for work, and I want to find a decent lodging. Perhaps you can help me, for I have never been in London before, and do not know where to go. My name is Joan Haste.” “Perhaps I can, and perhaps I can’t,” said Mrs. Bird. “It depends. Yours is a very strange story, and I am not sure that I believe it. It is not usual for beautiful young women like you to wander to London in this kind of way—that is, if they are respectable. How am I to know that you are respectable? That you look respectable does not prove you to be so. Do your friends know that you have come here, or have you perhaps run away from home?” “I hope that I am respectable,” answered Joan meekly; “and some of my friends know about my coming.” “Then they should have made better arrangements for you. That house to which you were going was not respectable; it is a mercy that it was shut up.” “Not respectable!” said Joan. “Surely Mr. Levinger could never have been so wicked,” she added to herself. “No: it used to be a while ago—then there were none but very decent people there; but recently the woman, Mrs. Thomas, took to drink, and that was why she was sold up.” “Indeed,” said Joan; “I suppose that my friend did not know. I fancy it is some years since he was acquainted with the house.” “Your friend! What sort of friend?” said Mrs. Bird suspiciously. “Well, he is a kind of guardian of mine.”