A little maid

SHE sat on a doorstep in Bone Alley. Her surroundings were such as you may see any day in that part of London, which is known to the upper class as the Slums. And she herself was not a striking feature in her landscape. Nine out of ten people would have passed her by, without a look or thought.

She was dressed in a brown skirt, a black bodice, and a faded blue felt hat, with a wisp of black ribbon and a ragged crow’s feather stuck jauntily in on one side. Her arms were hugging her knees, and two very dilapidated old boots rested themselves contentedly on a medley of orange-peel, broken bottles, and old tins. Her eyes were big and blue, her hair a nondescript brown, hanging in straight wisps round her small pinched face. But she was a dreamer.