Gray youth

g portions either dwelling-rooms or else rooms that, like the shop, were left at night and returned to again the next morning. The narrow entry to the right of

, licking up the last splash left by the milkman's can. When a new milkman took the round he was lucky if he did not come down all-fours at the bottom of the narrow windin

orothy

Amory

words: "First Floor: if O

nd the room beyond warm (which possibly was the case), this door, which was of thin matchboarding, warped inwards quite two inches at the top, and, indeed, seemed to be held only by the fastening in the middle. When the door happened to be locked the glimpse through th

ture-hat and a long tea-coloured silk raincoat. On the first landing she pushed at the door with her foot. There was a short succession of flapping and shot-

alled loudly.

a dense yellow cauliflower of smoke; Miss Lennard hastily closed the door again; and then, first looking for a moment this way and that, she strode to a black-and-white desk near the long casement and began to turn over the litter upon it. This, which was a foot and more high, consisted of magazines and ladies' journals and tracing-paper and proofs, and it was surmounted, first, by a plate with a couple of bananas and a half-eaten bunch of grapes upon it, and secondly, by a glass of water, cle

or the sake of the views from the long lattice in front, that they had chosen the place. These were for ever changing and charming. From a standpoint just within the door you looked over the Embankment Gardens and saw, through trees, lighters following the bullying tugs, or barges, their sails reefed to the sprits, resembling tall attenuated figures in the act of grasping punting-poles. Placing yourself in the middle of the worn floor you s

Street all the time!... I say, Amory, have you seen that Doubled

again, and Miss Amo

d round and round her head and interplaited until it resembled a vividly painted fir cone. She wore a peacock's-neck-coloured blouse with several necklaces of iridescent shells at the collar; a roughened leather belt encircled the wai

w. "I haven't touched

against the embrasure, gazi

brightness of their own as well. The slight neck was white as a bluebell stalk; the faint flower-like stippling that never quite broke through into avowed freckles reminded you of a rubbed old miniature that might have been painted, not on ivor

rs, rose from her knees. She held a piece of paper in her hand. "G

eard about

the way from Oxford Street for nothi

ing to be

eceptive rounds; in moments of surprise they always

y dear, do te

at the boar

he safety-val

es

s forty if he's a da

ee. Aunt Jerry'

her a note? When are they going to be married?" Miss Lennard came as n

hey're getting marrie

ory turned impatiently to the window again.

checked in her glee

oncede that Dorothy, like herself, did contrive to live on what she earned; she earned from thirty to thirty-five shillings a week as a fashion artist; but it was one thing to make do on that, with people behind you to catch you when you stumbled, and quite another to have (as Amory had under her godmother's will) a scanty thirteen pounds a quarter, to sell a sketch or a picture once in a blue moon, and to know that that is all the help you need look forward to. Dorothy would quickly have found out the difference had it been she, Amory, who had had the people with houses in town and

nswer when her friend ask

contrived, though probably by accident,

soon! I am glad! I do hope they'll be happy!... And

from somebody's point of view besides Aunt

id the bills t

and live with them when they

Mr. Massey together or she wouldn't have asked that. And one of them was thirt

l you do?" Doro

he window. She spoke wi

left? Come and live here, as f

once, struck with the i

door and that chimney! Jo

she said, tossing th

ht the tone in w

alent and chances!" she replied cheerfully. "My hat, wouldn't I swap! Why, think of what all the c

t forget it's been put o

catalogue rush, or when you've drawn the lingerie ladies as like fishes as ever they can be, and you get letters complaining that you're starting young men on the downward path-you'd come back to your pi

he teapot on to the heap that already choked the t

arly arrived at were things to be distrusted. And there were indications that she really had "found herself" at last. She had swept aside, quite a long time ago, her earlier efforts of the days of the McGrath; she had outgrown, too, the Meunier-like figures, all muscle and hammers and leather aprons, that had first attracted Mr. Hamilton Dix's attention; and all round that Cheyne Walk room were stacked the canvase

brown paper wrapper and began to read as she stood. Still reading, she sidled slowly back to the window, where the light was better, and mechanically turned the page. She could always pick up a book and lose herse

after a time sold them back to the bookseller again at diminished (but still quite good) prices. None but rather expensive and abstruse books were thus bought; had The Golden Bough been procurable in the Bohn Library the Association would have felt that something of its choiceness had gone; and Amory hoped, when she had got through The Golden Bough, to be the next in rotation for certain of the Tudor Translations, and she did wish Laura B

e the book and sat down at

the wedding, of the Exhibition that for various reasons Mr. Hamilton Dix had repeatedly postponed, and

he tucked the Doubleday thing into her belt and a

king of a clock, Amory's work was rather different. Dorothy, of course, always professed to admire Amory's painting enormously; in a sense she had no choice but to do so, unless s

-she grimaced slightly-"there's to-night. They're having a party, or a celebration, or so

thy only

"-her tone changed suddenly, and all at once she seemed embarrassed,-"I nearly forgot-ther

say almost before they knew it themselves. She knew what Dorothy was going to say now. And it was not true that Dorot

that is-more like a painting-and I think the price could be screwed up to fifteen pounds for it

is separate in kind, and not a dilution of a different excellence. Dorothy, by rising, might in time attain to the heights of the great Mercier, who did "Doubleday Spring Covers," but Amory, stooping

ly shouldn't know how to begin," she said. "I

tips?" said Dorothy

afrai

, and Dorothy's admiration was the homage that artistic vice (fashion-draw

you are plucky!

it go at that. She murmured something about "Absurd!" and Dorothy, with a wave, was o

s not all very fine for Dorothy to talk; anybody could talk lightly about living over greengrocers' shops who had people who rode in cars with tea-baskets and bridge-tables inside them and lived in houses with eight-foot baths and electric lights in the wardrobes so that they could see which f

andt, a Corot, the Infante, and others-which she had bought in Paris four years before. She had Pater's description of the Gioconda by heart, as also she had that of Ri

hot part of the handle; and when she had run cold water on to the utensils she dipped her fingers into a scalding cup in a corner of the tin that had not been cooled. The butter on the plates was horrid, and instead

r. From what part of the house it came she did not know-perhaps from the greengrocer's downstairs, perhaps f

ally was coming to live in this room, something would have to be don