"She's got _three_ shawls on this morning, and you know that always means that she's felt a draft somewhere--poor dear.

I'll tell her, though, and I'll see you at eleven," finished Billy, as she hung up the receiver.
Promptly at the appointed time Billy met Uncle William at Park Street, and together they set out for the West End street named on the paper in his pocket.

But when the shabby house on the narrow little street was reached, the man looked about him with a troubled frown.
"I declare, Billy, I'm not sure but we'd better turn back," he fretted.
"I didn't mean to take you to such a place as this." Billy shivered a little; but after one glance at the man's disappointed face she lifted a determined chin.
"Nonsense, Uncle William! Of course you won't turn back.

I don't mind--for myself; but only think of the people whose _homes_ are here," she finished, just above her breath.
Mrs.Greggory was found to be living in two back rooms at the top of four flights of stairs, up which William Henshaw toiled with increasing weariness and dismay, punctuating each flight with a despairing: "Billy, really, I think we should turn back!" But Billy would not turn back, and at last they found themselves in the presence of a white-haired, sweet-faced woman who said yes, she was Mrs.Greggory; yes, she was.

Even as she uttered the words, however, she looked fearfully over her shoulders as if expecting to hear from the hall behind them a voice denying her assertion.
Mrs.Greggory was a cripple.