wing her content, Eva grumbled loudly at it to Vava. The
four were sitting at the same table, having lunch, and she found only
too willing a listener in Vava Wharton to sympathise with her.

'Cheer up, Eva; things might be worse. Here we are sitting on a wet and
bitterly cold afternoon in a pleasant, warm room, in comfortable chairs,
surrounded by newspapers, magazines, and fashion papers! What more could
you have if you were a fashionable young lady?' inquired her chum Amy.

'I could have this room as my own, and money to spend on the fashions I
look at, and somewhere to show them off better than a stuffy office or
Bleak House,' retorted Eva.

'Bleak House! That is the name of one of Dickens's books!' exclaimed
Vava.

'It is the name of a large hostel or boarding-house for ladies who earn
their own living, where Eva and I live, and it is really quite
comfortable, only that it is not home,' said Amy, and she looked
sympathetically at Eva, who was only sixteen, and had begun early to
work for her daily bread.

There was silence for a moment, and the four young faces looked as grave
as if they had the cares of the world upon their shoulders.

Suddenly Eva broke out, 'I wouldn't mind if I had something different to
look forward to; but to think of going on for years the same dull grind
and back to the same crowd of girls, who can talk of nothing but their
office or else roller-skating; and Amy does not approve of going out to
amusements every evening.'

'We wanted to take a house, but it is too expensive, and the one we
looked at was dreadfully dear, although it had no garden. Oh how I would
love a house with a garden! Some of the girls at school have gardens,
and even greenhouses, for they bring leaves and flowers to school for
our painting and botany lessons, and yet they are not rich,' observed
Vava.

'All houses are not dear. Girls! I have an idea; let's take a house
between us--the four of us!' cried Eva suddenly.

Stella looked up, startled at this abrupt suggestion; but Eva's chum
Amy, who was used to her ways, only smiled, and said jestingly, 'Where
do you mean to take a house, and how would you furnish it?'

'In the suburbs; and as for furnishing, we could do that on the
hire-system. It shall have a garden and a lawn and a tree--I must have a
tree; it's so ideal to sit and have tea in the garden under a tree, or
read a book in a canvas-chair on a summer's day,' replied Eva.

'I don't care for the hire