"I cannot get it," I answered. "It is more than provoking. What are we to do? I had taken such a fancy to the place." "It did seem, for that benighted place, fairly cheerful," said my mother, "but, Westenra, there is 40 a Providence guiding our paths. Doubtless Providence does not intend you to wreck your young life attending to lodgers." 40 "But, mother dear, don't you understand that we must do something for our living? It is disappointing, but we shall get over it somehow." During the rest of that day mother refused even to discuss the boarding-house scheme. She seemed to think that because we could not get 17 Graham Square, there was no other house available for our purpose. The next day I went out without mother. I did not visit the same agent. After finding myself in Bloomsbury I repaired to a post-office, and, taking down the big Directory, secured the names of several agents in the neighbourhood. These I visited in turn. I had dressed myself very plainly; I had travelled to my destination by 'bus. I thought that I looked exactly what I felt—a very business-like young woman. Already the gulf was widening between my old and my new life. Already I was enjoying my freedom. Once more I was supplied with a list of houses, and once again I trotted round to see them. Alack and alas! how ugly empty houses did look; how dilapidated and dirty were the walls without the pictures and bookcases! How dreary were those countless flights of stairs, those long narrow windows, those hopelessly narrow halls; and then, the 41 neighbourhood of these so-called mansions was so sordid. Could we by any possible means brighten such dwellings? Could we make them fit to live in? I visited them all, and finally selected three of these. Two had a clause forbidding the letting out of apartments, but the third and least desirable of the houses was to be the absolute property of the tenant to do what he liked with. 41 "That mansion," said the obliging agent, "you can sublet to your heart's content, madam. It is a very fine house, only one hundred and eighty pounds a year. There are ten bedrooms and five sitting-rooms. You had better close with it at once." But this I could not do. The outlook from this house was so hideous; the only way to it was through an ugly, not to say hideous, thoroughfare. I thought of my delicate, aristocratic mother here.
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