CHAPTER XXI.
AT THE ARROW STREET POLICE COURT.
Nervous people are generally too early, and
on the fatal Monday morning Miss Prudence
Semaphore, who was still weak and ill, but
meantime had found comparative repose in
her quiet and obscure lodgings, presented
herself at the door of the Arrow Street Police
Court almost as soon as it was opened. She
was dressed all in black, and with her white
face and long veil looked like a newly made
widow.
The baby farming case had excited great interest in the neighbourhood, where "good Mrs. Brown" was a well-known personage, and though three cases stood before it on the list, already dirty drabs from the surrounding alleys, with still dirtier infants clasped in their arms, had gathered on the pavement in hope of seeing the prisoner and witnesses arrive.
