easonable: three hundred
marks for that Vienna dress, which suited her so well; why, Jimmy himself
would have approved.

"Let's see!"

She reckoned on her fingers: forty marks the hat, three hundred the dress;
and the underthings, chemises, stays, a silk petticoat, boots ... that
came to ... came to ... a week at a hotel in Berlin ... time lost at
Hamburg ... the journey from Hamburg to Rotterdam, Harwich and London ...
the hotel on arriving, so as to be able to dress before going home: it
left her just fifty shillings to play the lady with and buy presents for
Pa and Ma. And Jimmy ... Jimmy, who was in London also, due to open at the
Hippodrome! And she had sworn that she would give him back that money at
once! To quiet her conscience, Lily, under her blankets, took the
"counter-oath" of the stage, with her left hand behind her back, the
fingers closed over the thumb, that she would repay him the money, most
certainly, as soon as she began to earn any.

"Lily! Can I come in, Lily?"

It was Ma, bringing her breakfast and a paper, _The Era_. Lily gave a
quick glance round the room: her skirt was hanging on the peg; the bodice
lay, without a crease, over the back of a chair, the hat on top of it, the
linen neatly folded: good! She did not look a scarecrow, at any rate! And,
sitting up against the pillows, with a napkin on her knees, Lily
breakfasted daintily, with her finger-tips:

"Pa, Where's Pa?" asked Lily. "Tell him to come up."

"Your Pa has gone out with the apprentices," said Ma. "He wouldn't wake
you, you looked so tired last night. Here, Lily, some more coffee? Another
slice of bread and butter?" continued Ma, spreading it for her.

"'K you!"

Lily accepted this as her due, like a lady accustomed to the manners of
good society, to having her breakfast brought to her in bed by the maid.

"Oh, Ma," said Lily, as she sugared her coffee, "they do understand things
on the continent! They know how to appreciate artistes there. I've had
such successes!"

"And you were angry with us for teaching you your profession," said Ma.
"You see now that it was for your good."

"But it depends on how it's done," said Lily. "If I had always been
treated like this, I should never have left you."

"Well, you don't bear your Pa and me a grudge, I suppose," said Ma, "or
you wouldn't have come back. We knew you'd come back. This has always been
your address; your Pa never took your name out of _The Era_."

"You didn't tr