"Oh, yes." Claudine was somewhat smug about her newly acquired medical knowledge, even if it came from observation rather than experience. "What I came about was new sheets. We can manage for a little longer, but you'll have to ask Margaret about more funds soon. We'll need at least a dozen, and that'll barely do."

"Can it wait another few weeks?" Hester regarded the column of figures in front of her. She ought to tell Claudine that she was going, but she could not bring herself to do it yet.

"Three, perhaps," Claudine replied. "I can bring a pair from home, but I don't have twelve."

"Thank you." Hester meant it. For Claudine to provide anything out of her own home for the use of street women was a seven-league step from the wounding distaste the woman had felt only three months earlier. The charity work Claudine had been used to was of the discreet, untrou-blesome kind where ladies of like disposition organized fetes and garden parties to raise money for respectable causes, such as fever hospitals, mission work, and the deserving poor. Some profound disruption to her personal life had driven Claudine to this total departure. She had not confided in anybody what it had been, and Hester would never ask.

"Breakfast will be ready in half an hour," Claudine responded. "You should eat." And without waiting for a reply, she went out, closing the door behind her.

Hester smiled and returned to her figures.

The next person to come in was Margaret Ballinger, her face pink from the cold, but with nothing of the hunched defense against the weather that one might expect. There was a confidence about her, an unconscious grace, as of one who is inwardly happy, all external circumstances being merely peripheral.

"Breakfast's ready," she said cheerfully. She knew Hester was going, but she refused to think of it. "And Sutton's here to see you. He does look a little . .. concerned."

Hester was surprised. Sutton, a ratcatcher by trade, occasionally did odd jobs for Hester. She stood up immediately. "Is he all right?"

"He's not hurt," Margaret began.

"And Snoot?" Hester was referring to the ratcatcher's eager little terrier.

Margaret smiled. "In excellent health," she assured Hester. "Whatever concerns Sutton, it is not Snoot."

Hester fait immeasurably relieved. She knew how Sutton loved the animal. He was possibly all the family he had, certainly all he spoke of.

Downstairs in the kitchen there was porridge on the large cast-iron stove. Two kettles were boiling, and the door to the toasting fire was closed while an entire loaf of bread, sliced and browned on the fork, sat crisping in two wooden racks. There was butter, marmalade, and blackcurrant jam on the table. The clinic was obviously quite well-off in funds at the moment.