nd go outa Sunday
afternoons," Mrs. Perce said. "Oo, I wish you'd take me!" Sally cried.
"Course I will!" answered Mrs. Perce, with the greatest good-humour.
Meanwhile old Perce had money out on loan. "I'd like," thought Sally,
with considering eyes, "to have money out on loan. I will, too. One day.
Why shouldn't I?"

Sally's mother, Mrs. Minto, was yawning by the small fire in the grate.
She was a meagre little woman of about forty, tired and energetic. The
Mintos' flat, although very bare, was very clean. Even when there was
nothing to eat, there was water for scouring; and Mrs. Minto's hands
were a sort of red-grey, hard and lined, all the little folds of the
discoloured skin looking as if they had been bitten deep with acid that
made them black. Her hair was very thin, and she drew it closely back
from her forehead into a tiny knob like a bell-pull, leaving the brow
high and dry as if the tide of hair had receded. Her lids were heavy
over anxious eyes; her mouth was a bitter stroke across her face, under
the small, inquiring nose. Her breast was flat, and her body bent
through daily housework and too little care of herself, too little
personal pride.

Sally resembled her mother. She too was small and thin. Her hair was
pale brown, an insipid colour with a slight sandiness in it. Her cheeks
were faintly freckled just under the eyes, and her nose, equally small
and inquiring, had some freckles upon it too. Her eyelashes were light;
her eyes a grey with splashes of amber. She was sitting huddled up near
the window, breathing intently, looking out of it with eager, fascinated
interest. The streets were full of lures. Outside, there was something
which drew and absorbed her whole nature. The noise and the lights
intoxicated her; the darkness was even more bewilderingly full of
dangerous attractiveness. It was night, and night was the time when
thrills came, when her heart beat closely with a sense of timid
impudence, a sort of leashed daring. In darkness she brushed hands
against the hands of boys, and got into conversation with strangers, and
felt herself romantically transfigured. They couldn't see how plain she
was in the dark: she herself forgot it. In the dark she felt that she
was bolder, with nobody to observe her and carry tales to her mother.
Boys who wouldn't look at her in daylight followed her at night along
dark streets. She was getting very experienced with boys. She could look
after herself with them. He