'Is Miss Claxton some relation of yours?' asked Mrs. Fox-Moore.
'No, oh, no, I don't even know her. She hasn't been out of prison long. The man in grey—he's Mr. Henry.'
'Out of prison! And Henry's the chairman, I suppose.'
'No; the chairman is the lady in black.' The pamphlet-seller turned away to make change for a new customer.
'Do you mean the mother of the Gracchi?' said Vida, at a venture, and saw how if she herself hadn't understood the joke the lady with the literature did. She laughed good-humouredly.
'Yes; that's Mrs. Chisholm.'
'What!' said a decent-looking but dismal sort of shopman just behind, 'is that the mother of those dreadful young women?'
Neither of the two ladies were sufficiently posted in the nefarious goings on of the 'dreadful' progeny quite to appreciate the bystander's surprise, but they gazed with renewed interest at the delicate face.
'What can the man mean! She doesn't look——' Mrs. Fox-Moore hesitated.