“The stolen photographs make the story look like a genuine case of kleptomania,” observed Lucy; “yet it may have had some object which does not readily occur to us. She may have wished to lay claim to relationship with some nice respectable-looking people, such as Mr. Hinton’s friends doubtless were.” “That was what Hinton said,” Tom returned. “He found out Hannah had been a workhouse child, and didn’t know of anybody belonging to her. It did seem pathetic in a way. Hinton thought so. He wrote to his grandmother in the country and got her to take the girl and give her another chance. But she soon ran away. Some gipsy show-people had been in the town, and the police said she went off with them. They had seen her among them.” “Ah,” thought Lucy, “and who knows what thread of hereditary lawlessness and vagabondage had been in this poor girl, whose childhood nobody had been at pains to understand and to discipline? And yet how impossible it is that such a one could be harboured in a house like Mrs. Mott’s—nay, it would be wrong, for nobody must voluntarily assume responsibilities which clash with duties.” “What decided Mrs. Mott, though,” Tom went on, “was when her last girl calmly took a candle to see where the gas was escaping. Mrs. Mott just stepped out of the parlour in time to see her coming with it, alight, out of the pantry. The gas escape was in the kitchen, and she was on her way downstairs. If Mrs. Mott had stayed in the parlour, we should have been all blown up together, for I was in the room overhead. Mrs. Mott was dreadfully upset; she set open every door and window and then called me. I turned off the gas, and soon found the leakage. Mrs. Mott was quite ill with the shock of knowing what might have happened. She said to me, at once, that she couldn’t stand it any more, she could not bear the responsibilities that the irresponsible might bring down on her head at any moment. I thought the feeling might pass off with the fright; but she’s stuck to it—more’s the pity for me.” “One wonders at city girls not having yet learned the truth about gas,” said Lucy. “Certainly I have heard curious stories about country people coming into town and ‘blowing out’ the light, and wondering much at the ‘nasty smell’ which ensued, compelling them to open the window, though there might be frost and snow outside. Did this girl come from the country?” “Not she,” said Tom; “she belongs to a mews quite close to our place. And what is more, on our kitchen wall there is a printed placard giving full instructions about such household matters as breaking pipes, escaping gas, or street doors left ajar.” “Everybody can read nowadays,” observed Lucy, “but every now and then one comes across a person who does not seem to read with any ease or facility; perhaps she was one of these.”