Holborn, which I afterwards
found was called Primrose Court, and when I got there she had
disappeared in one of the squalid houses opening into the court. I
knocked at the first door once or twice before an answer came, and
then a tiny girl with the face of a woman opened it. "Is there a
beggar-girl living here?" I asked. "No," answered the child in a
sharp, querulous voice. "You mean Meg Gudgeon's gal wot sings and
does the rainy-night dodge. She lives next house." And the child
slammed the door in my face. I knocked at the next door, and after
waiting for a minute it was opened by a short, middle-aged woman,
with black eyes and a flattened nose, who stared at me, and then
said, "A Quaker, by the looks o' ye." She had the strident voice of a
raven, and she smelt, I thought, of gin.'
'But, Mr. Wilderspin, Mr. Wilderspin, you said the girl was safe!'
It was my mother's voice, but so loud, sharp, and agonised was it
that it did not seem to be her voice at all. In that dreadful moment,
however, I had no time to heed it. At the description of the hideous
den and the odious Mrs.
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