twelvemonth. Skirts had made one of their appalling changes, and as she
walked down Regent Street and Bond Street she had stopped at the windows
of more than one shop bearing the sign "Ladies' Tailor and Habit-Maker,"
and had looked at the tautly attired, preternaturally slim models, her
large, honest hazel eyes wearing an anxious expression. She was trying
to discover _where_ seams were to be placed and how gathers were to be
hung; or if there were to be gathers at all; or if one had to be bereft
of every seam in a style so unrelenting as to forbid the possibility of
the honest and semi-penniless struggling with the problem of remodelling
last season's skirt at all. "As it is only quite an ordinary brown," she
had murmured to herself, "I might be able to buy a yard or so to match
it, and I _might_ be able to join the gore near the pleats at the back
so that it would not be seen."

She quite beamed as she reached the happy conclusion. She was such a
simple, normal-minded creature that it took but little to brighten the
aspect of life for her and to cause her to break into her good-natured,
childlike smile. A little kindness from any one, a little pleasure or a
little comfort, made her glow with nice-tempered enjoyment. As she got
out of the bus, and picked up her rough brown skirt, prepared to tramp
bravely through the mud of Mortimer Street to her lodgings, she was
positively radiant. It was not only her smile which was childlike, her
face itself was childlike for a woman of her age and size. She was
thirty-four and a well-set-up creature, with fine square shoulders and a
long small waist and good hips. She was a big woman, but carried herself
well, and having solved the problem of obtaining, through marvels of
energy and management, one good dress a year, wore it so well, and
changed her old ones so dexterously, that she always looked rather
smartly dressed. She had nice, round, fresh cheeks and nice, big, honest
eyes, plenty of mouse-brown hair and a short, straight nose. She was