“Perhaps I can, and perhaps I can’t,” said Mrs. Bird. “It depends. Yours is a very strange story, and I am not sure that I believe it. It is not usual for beautiful young women like you to wander to London in this kind of way—that is, if they are respectable. How am I to know that you are respectable? That you look respectable does not prove you to be so. Do your friends know that you have come here, or have you perhaps run away from home?”
“I hope that I am respectable,” answered Joan meekly; “and some of my friends know about my coming.”
“Then they should have made better arrangements for you. That house to which you were going was not respectable; it is a mercy that it was shut up.”
“Not respectable!” said Joan. “Surely Mr. Levinger could never have been so wicked,” she added to herself.
“No: it used to be a while ago—then there were none but very decent people there; but recently the woman, Mrs. Thomas, took to drink, and that was why she was sold up.”
“Indeed,” said Joan; “I suppose that my friend did not know. I fancy it is some years since he was acquainted with the house.”
“Your friend! What sort of friend?” said Mrs. Bird suspiciously.
“Well, he is a kind of guardian of mine.”
“Then he ought to have known better than to have sent you to a house without making further inquiries. This world is a changeable place, but nothing changes in it more quickly than lodging-houses, at any rate in Kent Street.”
“So it seems,” answered Joan sadly; “but now, what am I to do?”