"And what are you doing here?"
"Nothing that isn't right," said Lizzie. "I'm living with my grandmother, as any one will tell you, and working at my trade."
"Well—that is all right," he said, after a moment's hesitation.
"I don't suppose that you sought me out just for that, sir—to give me your approbation," the girl said quickly.
"For which you don't care at all," he said, with a half laugh.
"No more than you care for what I'm doing, whether it's good or bad."
"Well," he said, "I suppose so far as that goes we are about even, Lizzie: though I, for one, should be sorry to hear any harm of you. Do you ever hear anything—of your mistress—that was?"
She gave him a keen look. All the time her hands were busy with a little pile of match-boxes, the pretence which was to explain his presence had any one appeared. "She is—living, if that is what you mean," Lizzie said.
"Living! Oh yes, I suppose so—at her age. Is she—where she was?"
Lizzie looked at him, again investigating his face keenly, and he at her. They were like two antagonists in a duel, each on his guard, each eagerly observant of every point at which he could have an advantage. At last, "Where was that, sir?" she said. "I don't know where you heard of her last."