She paused, and drew her hand across her eyes. Diana saw that they were wet. But although startled, the girl held herself a little aloof and erect, as though ready at a moment's notice to defend herself against a softening which might involve a treachery to glorious and sacred things. "It so chanced"--Miss Vincent resumed--"that it had a bearing on experiences of my own--just now." "You are living in the East End?" "At present. I am trying to find out the causes of a great wave of poverty and unemployment in a particular district."--She named it.--"It is hard work--and not particularly good for the nerves." She smiled, but at the same moment she turned extremely white, and as she fell back in her chair, Diana saw her clinch her hand as though in a strong effort for physical self-control. Diana sprang up. "Let me get you some water!" "Don't go. Don't tell anybody. Just open that window." Diana obeyed, and the northwest wind, sweeping in, seemed to revive her pale companion almost at once. "I am very sorry!" said Miss Vincent, after a few minutes, in her natural voice. "Now I am all right." She drank some water, and looked up. "Shall I tell you the story he told me? It is very short, and it might change your view of him." "If you feel able--if you are strong enough," said Diana, uncomfortably, wondering why it should matter to Miss Vincent or anybody else what view she might happen to take of Mr. Barton. "He said he remembered his father (who was a house-painter--a very decent and hard-working man) having been out of work for eight weeks. He used to go out looking for work every day--and there was the usual story, of course, of pawning or selling all their possessions--odd jobs--increasing starvation--and so on. Meanwhile, _his_ only pleasure--he was ten--was to go with his sister after school to look at two shops in the East India Dock Road--one a draper's with a 'Christmas Bazaar'--the other a confectioner's. He declares it made him not more starved, but less, to look at the goodies and the cakes; they _imagined_ eating them; but they were both too sickly, he thinks, to be really hungry. As for the bazaar, with its dolls and toys, and its Father Christmas, and bright lights, they both thought it paradise. They used to flatten their noses against the glass; sometimes a shopman drove them away; but they came back and back. At last the iron shutters would come down--slowly. Then he and his sister would stoop--and stoop--to get a last look. Presently there would be only a foot of bliss left; then they both sank down flat on their stomachs on the pavement, and so stayed--greedily--till all was dark, and paradise had been swallowed up. Well, one night, the show had been specially gorgeous; they took hands afterward, and ran home. Their father had just come in. Mr. Barton can remember his staggering into the room. I'll give it in his words. 'Mother, have you got anything in the house?' 'Nothing, Tom.' And mother began to cry.