"Is onybody livin' here?" she demanded. "I thought I saw them all movin' out—I heard the building was comin' down to make room for lofts."
Dulcie answered that it wasn't, holding the door open as a tactful hint that she'd better go. But Janet had no intention of leaving. She had a woman's curiosity about a vacant house, and she was frankly looking things over, craning her neck to glance down the murky hallway.
"Would you think the basement might be to let to a decent body? It's no worth much, so old and all but I know a body as might conseeder it." Impractical as the "beastly step-aunt" had proclaimed her to be Dulcie grasped Janet's thin arm.
"How much would you pay?"
"Is it your hous'?"
"It's Miss Day's—" Dulcie nodded toward Felicia. "She's just been thinking she might rent part of it. Of course its altogether too large for her."
"If she's livin' here where's her furnishings?" demanded Janet cannily.
Felicia sat down on a stair. She motioned but the others remained standing, their lean figures casting grotesque shadows in the flickering light of the candle.
"This is the pattern of it," the little seamstress explained. "It's my house, Janet MacGregor, only it's dirty because while I was gone building my garden, some dirty filthy heathen came to live here. But now I'm home His Honor made them all go away. And as soon as I have earned enough money to pay the taxes and other things I shall make the house lovely again. The furniture is in a place called storage. I think I have to pay them something before I get my things, don't I, Dulcie?"
"What's the matter o' the storage bills?" demanded Janet her eyes gleaming.