d her the circumstances.

"She's an awful beast and makes no end of money out of the catering.
But no one dare say anything, as she's a relation of one of the
directors. All the young ladies are talking of your standing up to her."

"I suppose she'll report me," remarked Mavis.

"She daren't; she's too keen on a good thing; but I'll bet she has her
knife into you if she gets a chance."

Presently, Miss Meakin got confidential; she told Mavis how she was
engaged to be married; also, that she met her "boy" by chance at a
public library, where they both asked the librarian for Browning at the
same time, and that this had brought them together.

The girls went down to dinner in two batches. When it was time for
Mavis to go (she was in the second lot), she was weary with exhaustion;
the continued standing, the absence of fresh air, her poor breakfast,
all conspired to cause her mental and physical distress.

The contaminated air of the passage leading to the eating-room brought
on a feeling of nausea. Miss Meakin, noticing Mavis change colour,
remarked:

"We're all like that at first: you'll soon get used to it."

If the atmosphere of the downstair regions discouraged appetite, the
air in the glazed bricked dining-room was enough to take it away; it
was heavy with the reek arising from cooked joints and vegetables.
Mavis took her place, when a plate heaped up with meat and vegetables
was passed to her. One look was enough: the meat was cag mag, and
scarcely warm at that; the potatoes looked uninvitingly soapy; the
cabbage was coarse and stringy; all this mess was seemingly frozen in
the white fat of what had once been gravy. Mavis sickened and turned
away her head; she noticed that the food affected many of the girls in
a like manner.

"No wonder," she thought, "that so many of them are pasty-faced and
unwholesome-looking."

She realised the necessity of providing the human machine with fuel;
she made an effort to disguise the scant flavour of the best-looking
bits she could pick out by eating plenty of bread. She had swallowed
one or two mouthfuls and already felt better for the nourishment, when
her eye fell on a girl seated nearly opposite to her, whom she had not
noticed before. This creature was of an abnormal stoutness; her face
was covered with pimples and the rims of her eyes were red; but it was
not these physical defects which compelled Mavis's attention. The girl
kept her lips open as she ate, displayi