Page:Gissing - The Nether World, vol. II, 1889.djvu/38

 from place to place. “Come in ‘ere, Johnny,” she called to the child lying on the landing. “What’s the good o’ washin’ you, I’d like to know! Just see, Miss Snowdon, he’s made his face all white with the milk as the boy spilt on the stairs! Take this brush an’ play with it, do! I can’t keep ’em clean, Miss Snowdon, so it’s no use talkin’.”

“Are you going somewhere to-night?” Jane inquired, with a glance at the strange costume. Pennyloaf looked up and down in a shamefaced way.

"I only did it just because I thought he might like to see me. He promised me faithful as he’d come ’ome to-night, and I thought—it’s only somethink as got into my ’ed to-day, Miss Snowdon.”

“But hasn’t he been coming home since I saw you last?”

"He did just once, an’ then it was all the old ways again. I did what you told me; I did, as sure as I’m a-standin ‘ere! I made the room so clean you wouldn’t have