"I am her sister. She sent me, because she was sick and could not come herself. May I see Hetty at once, please?" asked Precious in a depressed voice, for the squalor of the place lowered her girlish spirits unconsciously.
"In course you may see her; but she's very bad to-day, and I don't think she'll live long," was the curt reply, as the woman closed the shop door, placed a bar across it, and then turned to explain:
"I have to shut the door when I go upstairs to Hetty, because the bad boys will come in and steal everything."
She led the way through a back room up a dark, narrow stairway with a door at the foot of it, to a small, close-smelling bedroom as squalid as the rest of the place. There, on a hard bed, among soiled pillows, lay the once pretty, coquettish Hetty, who had been so anxious to marry above her station.
Poor Hetty! there was no mistake in her claim that she was dying of a broken heart, for anguish was stamped on the wan, haggard features and gleamed out of the sunken eyes beneath the tangled locks of hair that strayed neglected over her ashen brow.
"There's Hetty, lady, and I hope you'll stay a long time and talk to her, she's so lonesome a-layin' here all day by herself," croaked the grandmother, pushing a chair to the bedside. Then she lumbered heavily downstairs again, coolly locking the door at the foot.
Then she closed up the shop for the day, after putting a sign in the window to that effect. The next move was to ascend to another room, where her worthy son was shaving off his beard and arraying his very good figure in purple and fine linen, hoping to propitiate his expected guest.
"She's here!" she chuckled significantly, and he gave a cry of joy.
"Good! She shall not escape me again."
"She's in Hetty's room. You better hurry! That girl will tell tales."