ct had no terrors for her, neither did she feel any regret for
the past. She took it all as a matter of course. The days with Dan at
Slane were over, but life had still to be lived, and she set to work
to arrange it and live it to the best of her ability; what she most
urgently felt being merely that there were things she must see to at
once and settle about, and that she was rather pushed for time. The
first thing she did in London was to buy a map so that she might find
her way about economically, and some newspapers recommended to her by
the stationers as likely to have advertisements of respectable
lodgings in them. She studied these over a cup of coffee and a roll,
cut all the promising addresses out of the papers, found on the map
the best way to go by omnibus or railway, and then set off on her
quest, taking the red Hammersmith 'bus first of all, and explored West
Kensington. Her efforts in that direction were not successful.
Everything she saw at first was dear, dingy, and disheartening.
Landladies, judging her by her appearance, would only show her their
best rooms. When she explained that all she wanted was a nice, clean,
roomy attic because she was poor, they became suspicious, and declared
that she wasn't likely to get anything of that sort in a good
neighbourhood. Beth wondered what the bad neighbourhoods were like if
the one she was in were a good one. Later in the afternoon she found
herself on the Bayswater side in a street of tall houses off the main
thoroughfare. They were good houses, that must have been built for the
families of affluent people, and Beth was afraid it would be useless
to ask at any of them for the modest kind of accommodation which was
all she could afford. While she hesitated, however, standing in the
street before the one she had come to find, the hall-door opened, and
a young man came out. He and Beth looked at each other as he ran down
the steps, and Beth saw something so attractive in his face that she
spoke to him without hesitation.

"Can you tell me," she said, "if they have any attics to let at a
moderate price in this house?"

"Well, _I_ got one out of them," he said, smiling, "and I guess
there's another empty that would just about hold you, dress boxes and
all. I'll ring the bell, if you'll allow me, and get Ethel Maud Mary
to show you up. You'll make a better bargain with her than with her
ma."

The door was opened at this moment by a grimy servant.

"Gwendolen, wil