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202 from the country who looked as if they had worked in a Shoreditch cellar all their lives. Mrs. Barton said that hers were mostly rough girls who had had no domestic training and had no clothes. And they all sat round, as Philip says."

"Only even more so than he imagined, it seems," said that gentleman.

"Uncommonly like an Eastern slave market—Royal Academy style," remarked Tom.

"They had no proper clothes," continued Mrs. Bartlett distantly, "so they could not go to registry offices or reply to advertisements. When they get a place the 'Settlement' gives them caps and aprons and a few things, and you find them the rest."

"Good business," commented Tom.

"Out of their wages, of course."

"Poor worms," murmured Philip.

"I really liked Marianna's face from the first, although her get-up was quite frightful. She had very dilapidated boots—her father's, I learned—an old torn straw hat, and all her things like that. Her hair was half-way between long and short and looked—well"

"Quite frightful?" suggested Philip politely.

"Well, like a row of drowned rats' tails. Of course I expected her to refer to 'lydies' and 'blokes,' and to say 'Strike me pink!' and 'Garn!' and I was awfully surprised to find that she spoke quite nicely. When I was talking to her it came out by accident that she had not had anything to eat since breakfast on the day before. In a great state I said, 'Oh, why ever didn't you tell Mrs. Barton?' and off I rushed to find her. Imagine me when she took it quite as a matter of course and said that probably most of the girls had not had anything to eat since breakfast on the day before! I went out there and then and bought Marianna a bagful of buns, and she was