terribly at an advantage. If she let things stay as they were,
she was tacitly acknowledging some indefinite superiority which her
sister had won through sin. All the time she was saying nothing she
felt that Ellen was saying in her heart--"I have been away to foreign
parts, I have been loved by a man I don't belong to, I have Seen Life, I
have stopped at hotels, I have met people of a kind you haven't even
spoken to...." That was what Ellen was saying, instead of what Joanna
thought she ought to say, which was--"I'm no better then a dairy girl in
trouble, than Martha Tilden whom you sacked when I was a youngster, and
it's unaccountable good of you to have me home."

Joanna was not the kind to waste her emotions in the sphere of thought.
She burst out of the room, and nearly knocked over Mene Tekel, who was
on her way to Ellen with a jug of hot water.

"Give that to me," she said, and went to her sister's door, at which she
was still sufficiently demoralized to knock.

"Come in," said Ellen.

"I've brought you your hot water."

"Thank you very much--I hope it hasn't been a trouble."

Ellen was standing by the bed in a pretty lilac silk wrapper, her hair
tucked away under a little lace cap. Joanna wore her dressing-gown of
turkey-red flannel, and her hair hung down her back in two great rough
plaits. For a moment she stared disapprovingly at her sister, whom she
thought looked "French," then she suddenly felt ashamed of herself and
her ugly, shapeless coverings. This made her angry, and she burst out--

"Ellen Alce, I want a word with you."

"Sit down, Jo," said Ellen sweetly.

Joanna flounced on to the rosy, slippery chintz of Ellen's sofa. Ellen
sat down on the bed.

"What do you want to say to me?"

"An unaccountable lot of things."

"Must they all be said to-night? I'm very sleepy."

"Well, you must just about keep awake. I can't let it stay over any
longer. Here you've been back five hour, and not a word passed between
us."

"On the contrary, we have had some intelligent conversation for the
first time in our lives."

"You call that rot about furriners 'intelligent conversation'? Well,
all I can say is that it's like you--all pretence. One ud think you'd
just come back from a pleasure-trip abroad instead of from a wicked life
that you should ought to be ashamed of."

For the first time a flush darkened the heavy whiteness of Ellen's skin.

"So you want to rake up the past? It's exactly like you