in
laughter unquenchable. They swept on through Lancashire with its
chimneys and furnaces and barren heaps of refuse. They swung clear of
these huddled populations and, through the gathering twilight, cut a way
across the rolling dales of Cumberland. Jenny thought what horrible
places they were, these sweeping moorland wastes with gray cottages no
bigger than sheep, with switchback stone walls whence the crows flew as
the train surged by. She was glad to be in the powdered, scented, untidy
compartment in warmth and light. The child grew tired and, leaning her
head on Valerie's breast, went to sleep; she was drowsily glad when
Valerie kissed her, murmuring in a whisper melodious as the splash of
the Saone against the warm piers of her native Lyons:

"Comme elle est gentille, la gosse."

Pillowed thus, Jenny spent the last hours of the journey with the dark
crossing of the border, waking in the raw station air, waking to bundles
being pulled down and papers gathered together and porters peering in
through the door. Madame Aldavini said before she left them:

"To-morrow, girls, eleven o'clock at the theater."

And all the girls said, "Yes, Madame," and packed themselves into a cab
with velvet cushions of faded peacock-blue and a smell of damp straps.
There they sat with bundles heaped on their knees, and were jolted
through the cold Glasgow streets. It was Saturday night, and all the
curbstones were occupied by rocking drunkards, except in one wide street
very golden and beautiful, from which they turned off to climb
laboriously up the cobbles of a steep hill and pull up at last before a
tall house in a tall, dark, quiet road.

They walked up the stairs and rang the bell. The big door swung open, to
Jenny's great surprise, apparently without human agency. They stood in
the well of a great winding stone staircase, while a husky voice called
from somewhere high above them to come up.

They had a large sitting-room, too full of hangings and overburdened
with photographs of rigid groups; but the fire was blazing up the
chimney and the lamp was throwing a warm and comfortable halo on the
ceiling. Jenny peeped out of the window and could see the black roofs of
Glasgow in the starlight. They had tea when they arrived, with porridge,
which Jenny disliked extremely, and oatcakes which made her cough; and
after tea they unpacked. It was settled that Jenny should sleep with
Valerie. The bedroom was cosy with slanting bits of c