"I have lived there all my life, until--until quite recently--until I came here." She was silent for a moment or so.

This old man was the only person she knew in Brown's Buildings; they had made acquaintance on the stairs, and they had now and again borrowed little things--sugar, salt, a candle--from each other.

She liked him, and--she was a woman and only twenty-two--she craved for some companionship, someone on whom she could bestow the gentle word and the smile which all good women and true long to give.

At this moment she wanted to tell him something of her past life; but she hesitated; for when one is poor and alone in the world, one shrinks keenly from speaking of the happiness that is past.

But the longing was too much for her.