There was a carpet on the floor that still retained patches of crimson here and there. Winny's box couch, too, was covered with a patchwork of cretonne which looked bright and pretty; and there was an arm-chair covered in the same fashion on the other side of the fireplace, and a little round table in the middle of the room covered with a white cloth, on which was set out the tea-cups and a plate or two, but not an atom of food, because the last morsel was eaten at breakfast time, and until father or mother came home with the day's earnings, no tea could be had by the sisters. Most eagerly did Letty peer into the darkness of the dreary little street. The wind blew cuttingly cold off the river, and although it was not much after five o'clock, it had been so dull and foggy all day that now in the March wind everybody had been glad to get indoors, and no one was to be seen moving about. Here and there lights twinkled in the windows of the houses; but many, like this home window of Letty's, only showed the red glow of a little cinder fire made ready for the festival of the day—tea, when the children were at least sure of half a meal if the father's earnings would not get them a whole one. After looking up and down the street for either father or mother to appear, Letty went indoors and upstairs, for she was shivering, and the little stool by the fireside was more comfortable than the door-step. "Was that Annie Brown went out just now?" she asked rather sharply as she came in. "Yes. She just looked in as she went by," answered the voice in the corner. "I wonder you talk to her, Winny, when you know they are all such a bad lot," said her sister shutting the door with a bang. "Oh, Annie is not so bad when you come to know her. Her father works at the docks; gets more work, I think, than father does, and—" "That may be, but still I know mother don't want me to go to play with her," said Letty speaking somewhat severely. But her sister only smiled to herself in the shadow. Letty was like her mother, and prided herself on holding herself aloof from a good many—nay, most of their neighbours, for they had not always been so poor as they now were. Chaplin had been a carpenter, but ill-health and bad times had thrown him out of work, and he had drifted from one thing to the other until at last he had been glad to get an occasional day's work at the docks as a day labourer, while his wife got a little charing at some of the larger houses close at hand. In this way, a year or two had passed, during which, if they had sunk no lower, they had made no headway towards recovering their position. And during this time, the eldest girl, Winny, had gradually sunk into a state of ill-health that at first seemed likely to add to her father's despondency. But the girl herself developed a cheerfulness that made her a very fountain of hope and good cheer for others, although she seemed to have given up all thought of being any better herself.