"A leetle drop, stupid!—a good big drop, you mean!" cried the shrew. "Isn't Mr. Rainford a friend of Mr. Bones?—and ain't all Mr. Bones's friends _our_ friends? I'm sure if Mr. Rainford would drink a—a quar—a _pint_ of brandy," she added, emphatically defining the quantity she felt disposed to place at the service of the new acquaintance, "he is quite welcome." "No, thank'ee," said Rainford. "I must be off. The business of to-morrow night requires consideration; and——" He was interrupted by a knock at the street-door; and Toby Bunce hastened to answer the summons. CHAPTER IX. A DEATH-SCENE.—LOCK'S FIELDS. The room-door was left open; and the inmates could therefore hear every thing that took place in the passage. Toby Bunce opened the street-door cautiously, and said, "Who's there?" "In the name of heaven, grant me a night's lodging," exclaimed the appealing voice of a female: "if not for myself—at least for this poor dear child!" "Toby, shut the door!" screamed the querulous tones of Mrs. Bunce from the back-room. "We don't want beggars and poor children here." "Stay!" cried Tom Rain: "never be hard-hearted!" And, hastening to the street-door, he saw, by the light of a shop-window opposite, the form of a miserable-looking female crouching upon the steps, and with one arm round the neck of a little boy who was crying bitterly. "Come in, my good woman," said Rainford. "I will pay any expenses that your presence may entail on the people of the house:—come in, I say." But the poor creature fell back insensible. "Toby, take care of the child," cried Tom Rain in an authoritative tone; "while I lift the woman off the steps." And, suiting the action to the word, he raised the senseless being in his arms, and conveyed her into the passage, Toby following with the little boy, who seemed to be about five or six years old. "Surely you're mad, Tom," exclaimed Old Death, advancing from the back-room, "to bring strangers into this house." "I should be a brute to see a dying woman turned away from the door of this or any other house," said Rainford firmly. "Stand back, and let me have my way. My purse shall satisfy the Bunces for any trouble this business may give them." "Well, well—be it as you will," growled Old Death: then, in a hasty whisper to Betsy Bunce, he added, "You had better let him do as he likes. He is a queer fellow, but very useful—and must not be offended." Thus advised, and cheered moreover by Rain's liberal promise of payment, Mrs. Bunce suddenly exhibited a vast amount of sympathy on behalf of the poor creature; and, having fetched a candle from the back-room, she lighted Rainford, who carried the still senseless woman in his arms, up stairs to a chamber where there was a sordid kind of bed. Rainford placed his burden on the miserable pallet, and Betsy Bunce applied such restoratives as the circumscribed economy of her household furnished.