Marie conceived a high estimate of the guardians of the law, for her friend passed her along to another, who transferred her to a third, and all three men were courteous and considerate in every way. Perhaps Marie’s good looks, and engaging manners had something to do with this suavity, but she was certainly charmed with her guides. It was a fourth policeman, tall, slim and military-looking who conducted her down the crooked alley, near the riverside, where Mother Slaig had her boarding-house. There were numbers of disreputable people about, both male and female, and when the oaths of these unfortunate creatures struck her ear, and her eyes rested on their animal faces, the girl felt glad that she had a constable at her elbow. In her ignorance, she had never thought that the neighborhood was so vile as this, and half regretted coming. However, she had the high spirit of the Inderwicks, and declined to turn back, for having put her hand to the plough, the did not intend to leave it until she had driven her furrow. The fourth policeman saw her shudder of disgust, when they stopped before a disreputable house, dingy, tumble-down, and dilapidated. “I shall stay here while you give Mother Slaig your tracts, miss,” he said politely, also taking her for a district visitor, “and if anything goes wrong, you just call for me.” Perhaps for this reason Mother Slaig received Marie graciously, when she ventured into the evil-smelling place. It was like a rabbit-warren with innumerable doors, passages, stairs, and rooms, all equally foul. Men and women in ragged garbs swarmed in and out, while children tumbled here there and everywhere, shrilly crying and swearing and quarrelling. The police introduced Marie to the landlady of this thieves’ kitchen, as it truly was, and then took up his station at the door with his thumbs in his belt, to look benignly on the ebbing and flowing of the populace in and out of the lane, and in and out of the dens which bordered it. Mother Slaig, not approving of district visitors—for Marie had been presented as one—led the young lady into a small dark room on the ground floor, and sat down with a sniff, prepared to battle for her rights as an Englishwoman, who declined to be converted. She was a shapeless stout old creature swathed in various rags which had long since lost their color. Her face was so swarthy as to suggest gipsy blood, and her snappy black eyes and the quantity of cheap jewellery she wore emphasised the fact that she probably belonged to the gentle Romany. “I don’t want no Bible talk, young lady,” she said in a harsh voice, “nor no tracts, nor no arsking if I’m saved. Whether I am or I ain’t’s my look out, so just say your say and git, though I don’t deny,” added Mother Slaig in a whining tone, “as a shilling or two, let alone gold, would help me to bear me sorrers better, bless you, my dearie.”