is the sort of
girl that can never resist the back-door tout. She is constantly being
persuaded to buy something for which she pays a small weekly sum.
This is entered in a book, and the only conditions are that she must
continue paying that sum for the rest of her natural lifetime.

On these lines Elizabeth has "put in" for many articles in the course
of her chequered career. She has had fleeting possession of a steel
engraving of QUEEN VICTORIA, a watch that never would go--until her
payments ceased--a sewing-machine (treadle), a set of vases and a
marble timepiece. The timepiece, she explained, was destined for "the
bottom drawer," which she had begun to furnish from the moment a young
man first inquired which was her night out.

As all these things were taken from her directly her payments fell
off, I thought I had better give her the benefit of my ripe judgment.
"I shouldn't buy anything on the instalment plan, if I were you," I
advised. "Some people seem to be made for the system, but you are not
one of them."

"But I 'aven't told you wot I'm buyin' now," she said excitedly,
putting a plate on the rack as she spoke. I ought to say she meant to
put it on the rack; that it fell two inches short wasn't Elizabeth's
fault.

"It was cracked afore," she murmured mechanically as she gathered
up the fragments. "Yes, I pays a shillin' a week an' I gets a
grammerfone."

"A what?" I gasped.

"A grammerfone--to play, you know."

"Where will it play?" I asked feebly.

"'Ere," she said, waving a comprehensive hand; "an' it won't 'arf
liven the place up. My friend 'as 'ers goin' all day long."

I stifled a moan of horror, for I am one of the elect few who loathe
gramophones, even at their best and costliest.

"Elizabeth," I cried, tears of anguish rising to my eyes, "let me
implore you not to get one of those horr--I mean, not to be imposed on
again."

"I've got it," she announced. "I meantersay I've paid the first
shillin' an' it's comin' to-morrow. I 'ave it a month on trial."

The month certainly was a trial--for me. Ours is not one of those
old-fashioned residences with thick walls that muffle sound, and where
servants can be consigned to dwell in the bowels of the earth. Every
noise which arises in the kitchen, from Elizabeth's badinage with
the butcher's boy to the raucous grind of the knife-machine, echoes
through the house _via_ the study where I work.

Thus, although Elizabeth kept the kitchen-door shu