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372 372 FL UTTER-D UCK.

covering " Rebbitzin," the household cat, with foreign fur. And in this room, drawing such breath of life, they sat — man, woman, boy — bending over boas bewitching young ladies would skate in ; stitch, stitch, from eight till two and from three to eight, with occasional overtime that ran on now and again far into the next day ; till their eyelids would not keep open any longer, and they couched on the floor on a heap of finished work ; stitch, stitch, winter and summer, all day long, swallowing hirsute bread and butter at nine in the morning, and pausing at tea-time for five o'clock fur. And when twilight fell the gas was lit in the crowded room, thickening still further the clogged atmosphere, charged with human breaths and street odours, and wafts from the kitchen corner and the leathery smell of the dyed skins ; and at times the yellow fog would steal in to contribute its clammy vapours. And often of a winter's' morning the fog arrived early, and the gas that had lighted the first hours of work would burn on all day in the thick air, flaring on the Oriental figures w r ith that strange glamour of gas-light in fog, and throwing heavy shadows on the bare boards ; glazing with satin sheen the pendent snakes of fur, illuming the bowed heads of the workers and the master's sickly face under the tasselled smoking-cap, and touching up the faded fineries of Flutter-Duck, as she flitted about, chattering and cooking.

Into such an atmosphere Flutter-Duck one day introduced a daughter, the " hands " getting an afternoon off, in honour not of the occasion but of decency. After that the crying of an infant became a feature of existence in the furrier's workshop ; gradually it got rarer, as little Rachel grew up and reconciled herself to life. But the fountain of tears never quite ran dry. Rachel was a passionate child, and did not enjoy the best of parents.