Hannah began, with trembling hands, to pick up the contents of her work-basket, which had been overturned in the scuffle.
Meanwhile Louie rushed upstairs, stumbling over and tearing her finery, the convulsive sobs beginning again as soon as the tension of her aunt's hated presence was removed.
At the top she ran against something in the dark.

It was David, who had been hanging over the stairs, listening.

But she flung past him.
'What's t' matter, Louie ?' he asked in a loud whisper through the door she shut in his face; 'what's th' owd crosspatch been slangin about ?' But he got no answer, and he was afraid of being caught by Aunt Hannah if he forced his way in.

So he went back to his own room, and closed, without latching, his door.

He had had an inch of dip to go to bed with, and had spent that on reading.