No pensions fer me, thank yer!" When Jonah had pointed out that she could not live alone in the cottage, she had listened with a mysterious smile.

With Jonah's allowance and her earnings, she was the rich woman, the lady chatelaine of the street, and she chose a companion from the swarm of houseless women that found a precarious footing in the houses of their relations--women with raucous voices, whose husbands had grown tired of life and fled; ladies who were vaguely supposed to be widows; comely young women cast on a cold world with a pitiful tale and a handbag.
And she fed them till they were plump and vicious again, when they invariably disappeared, taking everything of value they could lay hands on.

When Jonah, exasperated by these petty thefts, begged her to come and live with them, she shook her head, with a humorous twinkle in her eyes.
"No, yer'd 'ave ter pull me up by the roots like that old tree if yer took me out of this street.

I remember w'en 'arf this street was open paddicks, an' now yer can't stick a pin between the 'ouses.

I was a young gell then, an' a lot better lookin' than yer'd think.