She wore a large foul apron of sacking, which made her elegant body quite shapeless, and she was kneeling on the red-and-black tiled floor of the kitchen, with her enormous cracked boots sticking out behind her.

At one side of her was a pail full of steaming brown water, and in her red coarse little hands, which did not seem to belong to those gracile arms, she held a dripping clout.

In front of her, on a half-dried space of clean, shining floor, stood Mrs.Lessways, her head wrapped in a flannel petticoat.

Nearer to the child stretched a small semi-circle of liquid mud; to the rear was the untouched dirty floor.

Florrie was looking up at her mistress with respectful, strained attention.