ekeeper to whom she hazarded
the statement that Lemuel was in Australia had saucily replied: 'I
thought maybe it was the North Pole he was gone to!'

This decided Mrs. Malpas. She returned suddenly to the Five Towns,
where at least her reputation was secure. Only a week previously Lemuel
had learnt indirectly that she had left their native district. He
determined thenceforward to forget her completely. Mrs. Malpas's
prettiness was of the fleeting sort. After Nina's birth she began to get
stout and coarse, and the nostalgia of the saloon-bar, the coffee-room,
and the sanded portico overtook her. The Tiger at Bursley was for sale,
a respectable commercial hotel, the best in the town. She purchased it,
wines, omnibus connection, and all, and developed into the typical
landlady in black silk and gold rings.

In the Tiger Nina was brought up. She was a pretty child from her
earliest years, and received the caresses of all as a matter of course.
She went to a good school, studied the piano, and learnt dancing, and at
sixteen did her hair up. She did as she was told without fuss, being
apparently of a lethargic temperament; she had all the money and all the
clothes that her heart could desire; she was happy, and in a quiet way
she deemed herself a rather considerable item in the world. When she was
eighteen her mother died miserably of cancer, and it was discovered
that the liabilities of Mrs. Malpas's estate exceeded its assets--and
the Tiger mortgaged up to its value! The creditors were not angry; they
attributed the state of affairs to illness and the absence of male
control, and good-humouredly accepted what they could get. None the
less, Nina, the child of luxury and sloth, had to start life with
several hundreds of pounds less than nothing. Of her father all trace
had been long since lost. A place was found for her, and for over two
years she saw the world from the office of a famous hotel in Doncaster.
Her lethargy, and an invaluable gift of adapting herself to
circumstances, saved her from any acute unhappiness in the Yorkshire
town. Instinctively she ceased to remember the Tiger and past
splendours. (Equally, if she had married a Duke instead of becoming a
book-keeper, she would have ceased to remember the Tiger and past
humility.) Then by good or ill fortune she had the offer of a situation
at the Hotel Majestic, Strand, London. The Majestic and the sights
thereof woke up the sleeping soul.

Before her death Mrs.