“See if your folks are here, Miss,” said the driver, “before I take off the trunk.”
Helen crossed the walk, clinging to her precious bag. She was not a little disturbed by this strange situation. These streets about here were the commonest of the common! And she was carrying a large sum of money, quite unprotected.
When she mounted the steps and touched the door, it opened. A bustle of sound came from the house; yet it was not the kind of bustle that she had expected to hear in her uncle’s home.
There were the crying of children, the shrieking of a woman’s angry voice—another singing—language in guttural tones which she could not understand—heavy boots tramping upon the bare boards overhead.
This lower hall was unfurnished. Indeed, it was a most unlovely place as far as Helen could see by the light of a single flaring gas jet.
“What kind of a place have I got into?” murmured the Western girl, staring about in disgust and horror, and clinging tightly to the locked bag.