"God send ye a good husband, lady!" rang out jubilantly. "God guard every shtep of your way!"
Miss Kezia found herself surrounded suddenly by bare legs, blue eyes, outstretched hands, entreating voices.
"God bless ye, lady! God bless ye, lady!"
There were five halfpennies and two farthings in her purse. She dispensed them automatically.
"God send ye a good husband! God send ye a good husband!"
Even the smallest imp, a scrap of a thing, about a foot and a half high, shrilly called on Heaven to provide her with a suitable partner.
Miss Kezia looked uncomfortable. She shut her purse with a snap and retreated on to the landing. But they followed her, all talking at once. Her hands were taken again. Disconcerting questions as to her family, her parents, were asked. The old woman who had stood beside her barrow for ten years without once putting her foot to the ground broke out wailingly into an account of her trials, her sorrows, and pains. A black-bearded man gave her a picturesque presentment of his life as a father of eight children. His was the shoulder on which the objectionable monkey sat. He came close, emphasising, with dramatic gestures, his story. The monkey stretched out a thin little arm towards Miss Kezia's bonnet. Miss Kezia backed precipitately. Why did her bonnet possess a fascination for monkeys, she wondered shudderingly. She hated monkeys.
"Sure, thin, isn't he welcoming one of his own people?" the man with the black beard observed.
Miss Kezia thought the remark impertinent, and concluded that it was intended to be funny. It wasn't.
It gave her disapproval the necessary fillip, and she managed to beat a retreat. Once in her bedroom, she shut the door, and, with a hurried air not usual to her, turned the key in the lock.