Part 8 (1/2)

To-night it doth inherit The vasty hall of death

CHAPTER III

SLUMMING IN LONDON; ADVENTURE IN WHITECHAPEL; BRAWL IN A SALOON; OUTINGS WITH WORKING GIRLS--MARGOT MEETS THE PRINCESS OF WALES-- GOSSIP OVER FRIENDshi+P WITH PRINCE OF WALES--LADY RANDOLPH CHURCHILL'S BALL--MARGOT'S FIRST HUNT; ECCENTRIC DUKE OF BEAUFORT; FALLS IN LOVE AT SEVENTEEN; COMMANDEERS A HORSE

After Laura's death I spent most ofin the slues pouring in and out of it Seeing the name ”Cliffords” on the door, I walked in and asked a workman to show er where it was and I knocked and went in Mr

Cliffords, the owner of the factory, had a large red face and was sitting in a bare, squalid roolanced atI asked hiht visit his factory once or twice a week and talk to the work-girls At this he put his pen down and said:

”Now, irls?”

MARGOT: ”It is not exactly THAT I aood, but do you think I could do your girls any harm?”

CLIFFORDS: ”Most certainly you could and, what is more, you WILL”

MARGOT: ”How?”

CLIFFORDS: ”Why, blessand make them late for their work! As it is, they don't do overirls are wicked and that you are going to ood and happy and save the?”

MARGOT: ”Not at all; I was not thinking of them, _I_ am so very unhappy myself”

CLIFFORDS (RATHER MOVED AND LOOKING AT ME WITH CURIOSITY): ”Oh, that's quite another ht consider it”

MARGOT (HUMBLY): ”That is just what I have coirls in the dinner interval, but if by accident I arrive at the wrong time I will see that they do not stop their work It is far more likely that they won't listen toto hear what I have to say”

CLIFFORDS: ”Maybe!”

So it was fixed up He shook me by the hand, never asked ht years when I was in London (till I married, in 1894)

The East End of London was not a new experience tothe year I caars I had come across a variety of slums I have derived asthe poor than the rich and I get on better with them What was new to me in Whitechapel was the head of the factory

Mr Cliffords hat the servants describe as ”a ht and clever He hated all his girls and no one would have supposed, had they seen us together, that he liked ht in the doorway of the rooet on with him

The first day I went into the barn of a place where the boxes were lue and perspiration and a roar of wheels on the cobblestones in the yard Forty or fifty wo, cutting and glueing cardboard and paper together; not one of them looked up fro, and kneeling down, pinned a photograph of Laura on a space of the wall This attracted the attention of an elderly woman who turned to her coirls! why, it's to the life!”

Seeing so my promise to Cliffords, I jumped up and told the their dinners and then I would like to speak to them, but that until then they must not stop their work I was much relieved to see thes which they placed on the floor with their hats, but when the ten minutes were over I was disappointed to see nearly all of theone to and was told that they either joined the men packers or went to the public-house round the corner