elsewhere. More frequently, as the winter advanced, Peggy
wailed, "Whatever is to become of us, dear only knows! What with Larry
drinking pints of cough-syrup, and Micky rolling in the gutter in his
best suit, and Norah, the creature, letting the crockery fly about as if
it was alive, and Hilary insisting on the table cloth being cleaner than
it ever is, and the boarders having to have food they can eat, and now
Lent's coming on and half of them don't take any notice of it but eat
their joints just the same, bad manners to them for heretics. Oh, _dear_,
oh dear, oh dear!"

Whenever Peter could spare any money he gave it to Peggy. But his own
fortunes were not exactly on the make. He was not proving good at his
job. Recommended to his employers by Leslie, he had begun, of course, on
a very small salary, to learn his trade; he hadn't so far learnt enough
of it to justify his promotion. Every day he went through the same
drudgery, with the same lack of intelligence,--(it is odd how discernment
and talent in one trade serve so little for another)--and every week came
home with the same meagre sum.

As far as he hated anything, he hated this work of his; long ago, had he
been alone concerned, he would have dropped it, and taken to tramping the
roads with boot-laces to sell, or some other equally unstrenuous and
unlucrative avocation. But he had not, from the first, been alone
concerned; first he had had to help Hilary and Peggy, and now he had
to keep a wife too. Eventually there would probably be also children to
keep; Peter didn't know how much these cost, but vaguely believed them to
be expensive luxuries. So there seemed no prospect of his being able to
renounce his trade, though there was a considerable prospect of its
renouncing him, as he was from time to time informed.

The winter dragged quietly through, and the spring came; the queer
London ghost of spring, with its bitter winds and black buds and evasive
hints of what is going on in the real world, where things change. Peter
dreamt of green things coming up and hawthorn hedges growing edible.
Rhoda's cough grew softer and her eyes more restless, as if she too
had her dreams. She developed a new petulance with Peter and with the
maid-of-all-work, and left off tying the kitten's neck-ribbon. It was
really a cat now, and cats are tiresome. She said she was dull all day
with so little to do. Peter, full of compunction, suggested asking people
to the house more, and