"And was she?"
A look of dejection crossed Jenny's face. "I don't see as she could 'ave been, because they say at the Orflinage as I was born in Holloway when my mother was doin' time."
By this time the contents of the box were ranged on the table and chairs, and Jenny was sitting back on her heels again to look at them.
"There! They're as pretty as a 'am and beef shop! And I do believe as that's what your mother meant 'em for too. Jim Cobb, 'e wanted me to set one up with 'im, but not me! Not as I 'ave any objections to the 'am and beef business, and if anybody else thought of starting it----"
Jenny's hint was interrupted by the sound of a vehicle stopping suddenly outside the house.
"Now, I bet ye I know who that is," she said with a wink. "It's that blessed Jim Cobb again. He's always a-wantin' me to go for a ride in 'is shandry."
But going to the window she cried, "Goodness! It's a handswim cab! And there's a laidy a-gettin' out of it!"
"A lady?"
"You can't see 'er now--she's on the steps. There she is," cried Jenny, as a rat-tat came to the street door, "and me not 'ad time to comb my 'air yet!"
With an indefinable feeling of mingled fear and hope which there was yet no cause for, Oscar stood on the landing and listened while Jenny ran down the stairs. When the street door was opened he heard his own name in a voice that sent the blood to his head and made him reel with dizziness. A moment later Jenny came back with a face that looked white even under the smudges that soiled it, and she said in the same fluttering voice as before: