She could not help but pause, hardly knowing why, when the gaunt figure of Mrs.Garth loomed large in the road beside her.

Rotha would now have hastened home, but the woman had recognized her in the darkness.
"How's all at Shoulth'et ?" said Mrs.Garth in her blandest tones; "rubbin' on as usual ?" Rotha answered with a civil commonplace, and turned to go.

But Mrs.
Garth had stood, and the girl felt compelled to stand also.
"It's odd to see ye not at work, lass," said the woman in a conciliatory way; "ye're nigh almost always as thrang as Thorp wife, tittyvating the house and what not." Again some commonplace from Rotha, and another step homewards.
"I've just been takin' a sup o' tea with laal 'Becca Rudd.

It's early to go home, but, as I says to my Joey, there's no place like it; and nowther is there.

It's like ye've found that yersel', lass, afore this." There was an insinuating sneer in the tone in which Mrs.Garth uttered her last words.