The door had a knocker, which Jill sounded loudly. There was no response whatever from within. She turned a little pale at this, put down her ear to the keyhole, and listened eagerly. Not a sound reached her from the other side of the closed door. She knocked once again, then putting her lips to the keyhole, she called through it in a high, sweet voice:
“It’s me, mother; it’s Jill! Open the door, please, mother, I ha’ lots of news.”
No response came to this petition. The same absolute, unbroken silence reigned inside the room. Jill paused to consider for a moment. The exalted dreamy look left her face; a certain sharpness, mingled with anxiety, filled her black eyes. After a very brief pause, during which she watched the closed door with a kind of sad patience, she picked up her basket and ran down to the next landing. The door here had a neat little knocker, which was polished and shining. Jill gave a single knock, and then waited for a reply. It came almost immediately. A woman with a night-cap on opened the door, uttered an exclamation at sight of the girl, put out her hand to draw her into the room, and spoke in a voice of agitation:
“You don’t mean to tell me, Jill Robinson, that yer mother ain’t ’ome yet? Why the—”
“Don’t say any more!” exclaimed Jill, eagerly. “I’m goin’ out to look for mother. She’s maybe took faint, or something o’ that sort. Will you take care of my flowers till I come back, Mrs Stanley?”
“Need you ask, honey? You lay ’em in there in the cool. You ’asn’t sold too many to-day, Jill. What a full basket!”
“Yes, but they’re mostly buds. They’ll look lovely to-morrow when I freshens ’em up. Now I must go to look for mother.”
“This ain’t a fit hour for a girl like you to be out, Jill.”
“Any hour’s fit when a girl can take care on herself,” responded Jill, proudly.
She ran quickly down-stairs, leaving her flowers in the passage of Mrs Stanley’s little flat. Just outside the door of the big building she came upon a motley crowd of men and women. They were eagerly gazing at something which excited at once their amusement and derision.