But they are not all like the woman who now leaves him and his house behind, between whose plain dress and her refined manner there is something exceedingly inconsistent. She should be an upper servant by her attire, yet in her air and step, though both are hurried and assumed—as far as she can assume in the muddy streets, which she treads with an unaccustomed foot—she is a lady. Her face is veiled, and still she sufficiently betrays herself to make more than one of those who pass her look round sharply.
She never turns her head. Lady or servant, she has a purpose in her and can follow it. She never turns her head until she comes to the crossing where Jo plies with his broom. He crosses with her and begs. Still, she does not turn her head until she has landed on the other side. Then she slightly beckons to him and says, “Come here!”
Jo follows her a pace or two into a quiet court.
“Are you the boy I’ve read of in the papers?” she asked behind her veil.
“I don’t know,” says Jo, staring moodily at the veil, “nothink about no papers. I don’t know nothink about nothink at all.”
“Were you examined at an inquest?”
“I don’t know nothink about no—where I was took by the beadle, do you mean?” says Jo. “Was the boy’s name at the inkwhich Jo?”
“Yes.”
“That’s me!” says Jo.
“Come farther up.”
“You mean about the man?” says Jo, following. “Him as wos dead?”