her, and which were weak and easily exploited. Or, if she were prevented from doing that, she could still look at them, seeing that they were men, and not women. The noise was good, the lights were good; but the darkness, such as there now was in the street below, in all the diminished labour of late traffic, was best of all. She saw the last customer at the Stores shown to the door by Mr. Beddow, the keeper of the shop; and the narrow door in the shutters closed. The last stream of light was abruptly cut off. The face of the Stores was black. All the opposite side of the roadway was now black. There were no more silhouettes.[Pg 13]

[Pg 13]

Mr. Beddow's cheeks were very fat, and when he smiled his eyes disappeared into slits just behind the top of his bulging cheeks. He wore a light frizzly beard. Once Mr. Beddow had given her a little bottle of acid-drops. All the acid-drops were gone now. She had given some of them to May Pearcey, who worked with her. They had eaten the remainder next day over their work, while Miss Jubb was out of the room; and the drops had made them thirsty and had given them hot, sweet breath. Funny she should remember it all so clearly.

May Pearcey and she were both learners at a small dressmaker's shop in a street off Holloway Road. They used to walk together along Grove Road in the mornings, and at dinner-time, and in the evenings. But the boys all looked at May, who was a big girl with rosy cheeks and eyes that were bold with many conquests. Sally only got the soppy ones. That was her luck. Sally wondered why a good-looking boy so often had a soppy one with him. She wasn't soppy herself. The boys thought she was; they never looked at her. But May picked up the good-looking ones, and Sally had to take what was left. She hated to see her boy always looking on at the others, at May, and never at herself; she hated to know that her boy didn't like the look of her, and that he couldn't think of anything to say to her; and didn't take the trouble to think very hard. It made Sally snap her teeth. One day, she reassured herself, it would be different. One day, they'd know.

Slowly she stretched, with her arms high above her head and her mouth stretched sideways in a yawn. Was mother asleep? She felt cramped and tired, and as she turned round to the light her eyes blinked at the contrast with the outer darkness.[Pg 14]

[Pg 14]

ii

"Oo!" groaned Sally. "Tired!"

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