tion of the place. From one of the landing windows she
caught a blurred picture of the streets outside, the lit-up barrows, the
crowd just emerging from the public-house. She was to get very used and
very hardened to the life in Digby Street, but on this, her first
evening, it caught at her senses with a cold touch of fear.

On the top floor of all Miss Nigel opened the first door along the
passage and ushered Joan into the room that was to be hers. It was so
small that its one window occupied practically the whole space of the
front wall. A narrow bed stood along one side, and between this and the
opposite wall there was scarce room for a chair. At the foot of the bed
stood the wash-stand and the chest of drawers facing each other, with a
very narrow space in between them. But it was all scrupulously clean,
with white-washed walls and well-scrubbed furniture, and the windows
opened over the roofs of the neighbouring houses. Very far up in the
darkness of the sky outside a star twinkled and danced.

Miss Nigel looked round at the room with evident satisfaction. "You will
be comfortable here, I think," she said; "we do our best to make the
girls happy. We expect them, however, to conform to our rules; you will
find them explained in this book." She placed a little blue pamphlet on
the dressing-table. "Lights are put out at ten, and if you are later
than that, you have to pay a small fine for being let in, a threepenny
door fee, we call it. Everyone is requested to make as little noise as
possible in their rooms or along the passages, and to be punctual for
dinner."

With one more look round she turned to go. Half-way out, however, a
kindly thought struck her, and she looked back at Joan.

"Dinner is at seven-thirty," she said. "I expect you will be glad to
have it and get to bed. You look very tired."

Joan would have liked to ask if she could have dinner upstairs, but one
glance at the book of rules and regulations decided her against the
idea. Shamrock House evidently admitted of no such luxury, and on second
thoughts, how ridiculous it was to suppose that dinner could be carried
up five flights of stairs for the benefit of someone paying fifteen and
six a week all told. She was too tired and too depressed to face the
prospect of a meal downstairs, she would just have to go to bed without
dinner, she concluded.

The House woke to life as she lay there, evidently the inhabitants
returned about this time. Joan reme