ad had in London. There was actually a
little writing-table with drawers, and from the window one could see
distinctly the waving green tops of trees in the park. The rent was
eleven shillings. Whereat I sighed heavily. But the writing-table,
and, above all, the actual view of tree-tops in the distance! I sighed
again, and explained regretfully that I feared my limit was eight
shillings. Then the young woman sighed too, and mentioned, with
apparent irrelevance, that her mother might be in any moment now.

I had earned five pounds in the previous month. With reasonable care
my food need not cost more than seven to ten shillings a week. Of
course I had managed on considerably less. I knew very well that that
sort of semi-starvation was in every way bad; but, when I thought of
that quiet back room, the distant tree-tops, the absence of smells,
the fact that I had seen no filthy or drunken people in the
neighbourhood, the soft-spoken girl at my side--'By heavens! It's
worth it,' I said to myself.

And just then--we were in the narrow ground floor passage--the mother
arrived, bringing with her an unmistakable whiff of a public-house
bar. This stiffened my relaxing prudence considerably. I had no kindly
feeling left for taverns, especially where women were concerned. But,
by an odd chance, it happened that Mrs. Pelly was not only in a
talkative mood, but also in higher spirits than I ever saw her
afterwards. She insisted on reinspection of the room, a sufficiently
dangerous thing in itself for me. And then, standing beside its open
window, with arms folded over the place in which her waist once had
been, she avowed that she thought the room would suit me, and that I
should suit the room.

'There's a writing-table in it, an' all, ye see,' she said, having
received a hint as to my working habits.

There was indeed. I was little likely to forget it. It now seemed the
charge for the room was eleven shillings weekly, without 'attendance.'
But Mrs. Pelly had never been a woman to stick out over trifles, that
she hadn't; and, right or wrong, though she hoped she might never live
to rue the day, she would let the gentleman this room for nine
shillings a week, and include 'attendance' in that merely nominal
rate--'So there, Miss!' This, to her daughter Fanny, and in apparent
forgetfulness of my presence.

It was a thrilling moment for me, standing there with one hand on the
writing-table, my gaze fixed over the scantily covered