ients for protection. Sally was indeed fierce and
resentful. It was with animosity that she put together the few sticks of
rubbish which remained to them and helped her mother to rearrange these
things in a single room which they had taken on the other side of
Holloway Road. No more for them the delights of Hornsey Road and three
rooms; but the confined space surrounded by these four dingy walls. What
wonder that Sally was desperate for fresh air, for escape, and ran out
of doors as soon as she could wriggle free! What wonder that she walked
quickly about the dark streets! Tears came to her eyes, and with
clenched fists she secretly whimpered in this new angry despair. Of what
avail? She was alone, and the streets were dark; and behind her lay that
one room, gloomy and wretched, with a speechless ruminating mother for
solitary welcome; and no hope ... no hope.

The roads she now so wildly trod were familiar ground to Sally. They
were all gravelled roads, upon which in the evenings boys and girls
cycled and flirted, and in which on Saturdays and after school hours
children bowled their hoops and played together. As the darkness grew,
the roads were more deserted, for the children were in bed, and the boys
and girls were not allowed out. Then appeared young men and girls of
slightly greater age and of a different class, the girls walking two by
two, the young men likewise. The young men cleared their throats, the
girls peeped and a little raised their voices, a relation was
established, and still the pairs continued to promenade, safe in
couples, and relishing the thought that they were enjoying stolen
acquaintance. Sally knew the whole thing through and through. She had
walked so with May. She had tried to talk to the boys and found them
soppy, and herself soppy, and everything soppy. She had wanted more and
more excitement, and all this strolling and holding hands in the dark,
and snatching them away, and running, and being caught, was tame to her
eager longing for greater adventure. And now she walked rapidly about
the roads, her eyes full of despair, her heart heavy, her brain active
and contemptuous. She knew her own cleverness. She knew it too well. And
it was smarting now at being proved such an ignominiously valueless
possession. She might be clever, she might have brains enough to despise
May Pearcey; but she had not the power to make a living. She must still
pinch and starve beside her mother. Trapped! Trapped!