Footsteps were growing fewer now. Children had been called in from the dirty courtyard where they played all day, and had been consigned to the respective heaps of rags or straw which formed their beds. Many men yet lingered at the public-house, not far distant, striving to drown care and misery for a while, by a means which sunk themselves and their families day by day into yet deeper degradation. Others had already retired to such rest as might be obtained in crowded rooms, with half-famished children crying themselves to sleep for want of food.
For a while no one passed. Then again came another step, heavily mounting the old staircase. A woman's figure, dimly seen in the uncertain light, drew near, staggering a little, as if hardly able to maintain her footing. She was supporting herself against the wall, and the child in the corner cowered down more closely with renewed fear. In vain this time. Following the course of the wall, the woman came against the unexpected obstacle, nearly falling down, and then standing still with the question—
"What's this? Who are you?"
Reassured by the voice, which showed that the unsteady walk was not, at least, caused by a visit to the terrible gin-palace, the child rose and came a step forward, still clenching her arms across her chest; but there was no answer to the question.
"What are ye after here?" asked the woman again; and, though she spoke in hard tones, as of one whose sympathies had been well-nigh dried up by long trouble, yet she would not pass by the lonely child, as many a richer man or woman might have done, like the Priest and the Levite of old.
A quick sob, gasped out with heaving breath, answered her. The woman leant against the wall, and laid a hand upon the arm of the little wanderer.
"Tell me what's your name, child?"
"Ailie Carter," was the muttered reply, followed by the entreaty, "Oh, don't ye send me back!"
"Ailie Carter. Then your father's Jem Carter, as came a while ago to live in one of the cellars?"
"Yes, our house is down there. Oh, don't ye send me back!" came in renewed entreaty.