You couldn't imagine anyone taking a liberty with Belinda Ann, although she was hail-fellow-well-met with everyone.
She might be a little rough in her manners, and not always too refined in her speech, but Belinda Ann had a heart of gold, was as true as steel to her friends, and thoroughly enjoyed life, taking the sweet with the bitter, spending money royally when she had it, and cheerfully going without when times were bad.
This evening she was attired in a peacock-blue cashmere and plush dress, which had seen its best days, almost covered by a large apron, not so clean as it had once been, and surmounted by a limp black straw hat adorned with some dejected-looking black feathers without a vestige of curl about them, and various dirty white flowers which flopped aimlessly over the brim.
I noticed that her boots were strong and good, and that near her lay a thick, handsome shawl, and in time I learnt that these two items of dress rank next in importance to the famous feathers, and that every true East Ender insists on having them of the best quality, and pays a good price for them.
Belinda Ann, meanwhile, having exhausted her interest in me, was turning to exchange "chaff" with her other neighbour, when, with an inward gasp, I plunged boldly into conversation.
"Do you come here every evening?" I asked.
"Depends!" was the abrupt answer, given in an off-hand, defiant sort of way which characterised her manner with strangers. "P'raps I do an' p'raps I don't!" and her look so plainly added, "What's it to you?" that I refrained from pursuing the subject.
"You all seem very lively," I hazarded next, with a look round.
"So you'd be to get a chance to do somethin' beside work!" was the fierce reply.
This made a capital opening to the question I was longing to lead up to, namely, "What do you do all day?"