ng garments for charity. Laura
had been at work for weeks on a coarse, red flannel petticoat, and as a
rule was under constant reprimand for her idleness. On this night,
having separated herself from Tilly, she sat down beside a girl with a
very long plait of hair and small, narrow eyes, who went by the name of
"Chinky". Chinky was always making up to her, and could be relied on to
cover her silence. Laura sewed away, with bent head and pursed lips,
and was so engrossed that the sole rebuke she incurred had to do with
her diligence.

Miss Chapman exclaimed in horror at her stiffly outstretched arm.

"How CAN you be so vulgar, Laura? To sew with a thread as long as that!"

XV.

For days Laura avoided even thinking of this unlucky visit. Privately,
she informed herself that Tilly's wealthy relations were a "rude,
stupid lot"; and, stuffing her fingers in her ears, memorised pages
with a dispatch that deadened thought.

When, however, the first smart had passed and she was able to go back
on what had happened, a soreness at her own failure was the abiding
result: and this, though Tilly mercifully spared her the "dull as
ditchwater", that was Bob's final verdict.--But the fact that the
invitation was not repeated told Laura enough.

Her hurt was not relieved by the knowledge that she had done nothing to
deserve it. For she had never asked for Bob's notice or admiration, had
never thought of him but as a handsome cousin of Tilly's who sat in a
distant pew at St Stephen's-on-the-Hill; and the circumstance that,
because he had singled her out approvingly, she was expected to worm
herself into his favour, seemed to her of a monstrous injustice. But,
all the same, had she possessed the power to captivate him, she would
cheerfully have put her pride in her pocket. For, having once seen him
close at hand, she knew how desirable he was. Having been the object of
glances from those liquid eyes, of smiles from those blanched-almond
teeth, she found it hard to dismiss them from her mind. How the other
girls would have boasted of it, had they been chosen by such a one as
Bob!--they who, for the most part, were satisfied with blotchy-faced,
red-handed youths, whose lean wrists dangled from their retreating
sleeves. But then, too, they would have known how to keep him. Oh,
those lucky other girls!

"I say, Chinky, what do you do when a boy's gone on you?"

She would have shrunk from putting an open question of this kind