Page:Gissing - The Nether World, vol. II, 1889.djvu/32

 learners, whose turn it was to run on errands, was overwhelmed with commissions to a chandler’s shop close by; a wry-faced, stupid little girl she was, and they called her, because of her slowness, the “funeral horse.” She had strange habits, which made laughter for those who knew of them; for instance, it was her custom in the dinner-hour to go apart and eat her poor scraps on a doorstep close by a cook-shop; she confided to a companion that the odour of baked joints seemed to give her food a relish. From her present errand she returned with a strange variety of dainties,—for it was early in the week, and the girls still had coppers in their pockets; for two or three she had purchased a farthing’s-worth of jam, which she carried in paper. A bite of this and a taste of that rewarded her for her trouble.

The quiet-mannered girl whom we were observing took her cup of tea from the pot in which she had a share, and from her bag produced some folded pieces of bread and butter. She had begun her meal, when there came