“Get the other side of Westminster Bridge, me girl,” said she, “and ask a likely looking chap the nearest way. As like as not he’ll give you a copper.”

The young woman departed, and her place was taken by a gaunt female who came to the same fountainhead for information.

She wanted to know the best casual wards on the road to Tunbridge Wells, and once more the fine old Irishwoman came to the rescue. Kitty has a strong, handsome face. She is over sixty, but quite upright, with a wealth of greyish hair and quick, humorous eyes. She is a most efficient woman and, as she told me, can plant a field of potatoes with any man, and is first on the list for a number of fruit pickers. She is well-known at Southwark, where she returns every month or six weeks. She has been on the road for some eight years, driven there by that economic pressure which has dehoused so many women. She lived for some time in a room in Kennington, supporting herself by daily housework, with occasional incursions into a laundry.