“Walk in, Mr. Dalbrook,” she said cheerily. “Pray come and sit by the fire; you must be chilled to the bone after coming through that horrid fog. Ah, how I hate fog! It is the scourge of the London poor, and it sometimes kills even the rich. And now we are only at the beginning of the evil, and there is the long winter before us.” “Yes, it is very bad, no doubt; but you do not look as if the fog could do you much harm, Miss Newton.” “No, it won’t hurt _me_. I’m a hardy old plant, and I contrive to make myself comfortable at all seasons.” “You do, indeed,” he answered, glancing round the room. “I had no idea——” “That anybody could be so comfortable in Lambeth,” she said, interpreting his thoughts. “No, people think they must pay for what they call ‘a good situation.’ Poor pinched widows and shabby spinsters spend more than half their income on rent and taxes, and starve on the other half, in order to live in a genteel locality—some dingy little street in Pimlico perhaps, or a stucco terrace in Kensington. Here am I with two fine large rooms in a forgotten old street, which was built before the age of shoddy. I live among poor people, and am not obliged to sacrifice a sixpence for the sake of appearances. I buy everything in the cheapest market, and my neighbours look up to me, instead of looking down upon me, as they might if I lived among gentilities. You will say, perhaps, that I live in the midst of dirt and squalor. If I do I take care that none of it ever comes near me, and I do all that one woman’s voice and one woman’s pen can do to lessen the evils that I see about me.” “It would be a good thing for poor neighbourhoods if there were many ladies of your mind, Miss Newton,” said Theodore, basking in the glow of the fire, and looking lazily round the room, with its two well-filled book-cases, occupying the recesses on each side of the fireplace, its brackets and shelves, and hanging pockets, its large old-fashioned sofa, and substantial claw-footed table, its wicker chairs, cushioned with bright colour—its lamps and candlesticks on shelf and bracket, ready to the hand when extra light should be wanted, its contrivances and handinesses of all kinds, which denoted the womanly inventiveness of the tenant. “Well, I believe it would. If only a small percentage of the lonely spinsters of England would make their abode among the poor, things would have to be mended somehow. There could not be such crying evils as there are if there were more eyes to see them, and more voices to protest against them. You like this old room of mine, I see, Mr. Dalbrook,” added Sarah Newton, following his eyes as they surveyed the dark red wall against which the brackets and shelves, and books and photographs, and bits of old china stood out in bright relief. “I am full of admiration and surprise!”