“You’ve unpacked, then?” she said. She looked round the small room approvingly. “I can see you’re one of the tidy ones,” she said. “I’m not; I wish I were. However, we can’t all be the same. Are you ready?”

She took Esther’s arm and they went downstairs together.

“Every one knows you’re coming,” June said as they neared the dining-room. “Every one always knows everything that goes on here. Don’t take any notice if they stare a lot; they must stare at something, poor darlings. I’ll tell you who they all are and all about them.”

The dining-room was a long, narrow sort of room that looked as if it once had been two rooms recently thrown into one; the floor was covered with slippery green linoleum, and there was a long table running almost the length of the room, with a few smaller ones on either side.

A grey-haired woman with pebble glasses stood at the 55 head of the long table; Esther recognised her as the proprietress, Mrs. Elders.

55

She said good-evening to Esther and stared frigidly at June, as if she did not like to see the two girls together. She did not approve of the little face cream lady, though she was careful never to say so, as June was one of her best paying propositions.

Esther was glad when they reached their own table; glad, too, that she was more or less out of the way of curious glances.

The dinner was plain, but infinitely superior to the fare she had had to put up with in the Brixton Road.

“Do you have all your meals here?” she asked June presently.

“No––only breakfast and supper––and not always supper. I go out with friends sometimes. Every one hasn’t given me up just because my family have. But the food is quite good here. They’re rather too fond of rice and stewed apples; but it might be worse. Turn round presently and look at the man behind you with the grey hair. Isn’t he handsome? We call him the colonel, though I don’t believe he’s a colonel at all. He’s a dear, but he always complains about everything. I know he gives notice regularly on Saturday morning and takes it back again on Saturday night. Mrs. Elders would think he wasn’t well if he missed giving her notice.”

She laughed, and turning in her chair spoke to a young man who was sitting alone at one of the smaller tables behind her.

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