Slater avoid her kindly friends. There was, however,
one friend who was not so readily to be avoided; that was Mrs. Carter.
Mrs. Carter also was a widow, or rather, to speak the direct truth, had
discovered one morning, twenty years ago, that Mr. Carter "was gone"; he
had never returned. Those who knew Mrs. Carter intimately said that, on
the whole, "things bein' as they was," his departure was not entirely to
be wondered at. Mrs. Carter had a temper of her own, and nothing
inflamed it so much as a drop of whisky, and there was nothing in the
world she liked so much as "a drop."
To meet her casually, you would judge her nothing less than the most
amiable of womankind--a large, stout, jolly woman, with a face like a
rose, and a quantity of black hair. At her best, in her fine Sunday
clothes, she was a superb figure, and wore round her neck a rope of sham
pearls that would have done credit to a sham countess. During the week,
however, she slipped, on occasion, into "d?shabille," and then she
appeared not quite so attractive. No one knew the exact nature of her
profession. She did a bit of "char"; she had at one time a little
sweetshop, where she sold sweets, the _Police Budget_, and--although
this was revealed only to her best friends--indecent photographs.
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