And when she brought it, I drew out the imitation pearl pins and put them
between my teeth, and jammed the hat on my head and skewered it savagely
with the pins.

'Is that right?'

'It suits you better than it does me, ma'am, I do declare,' she said.
'Oh, ma'am, this is too much--I really couldn't!'

I had given her five shillings.

'Nonsense! I am very much obliged to you,' I whispered hurriedly,
and ran off.

She was a good girl. I hope she has never suffered. And yet I would
not like to think she had died of consumption before she knew what
life meant.

I hastened from the hotel. A man in a blue waistcoat with shining black
sleeves was moving a large cocoa-nut mat in the hall, and the pattern of
the mat was shown in dust on the tiles where the mat had been. He glanced
at me absently as I flitted past; I encountered no other person. The
square between the hotel and the station was bathed in pure
sunshine--such sunshine as reaches the Five Towns only after a rain-storm
has washed the soot out of the air. I felt, for a moment, obscene in that
sunshine; but I had another and a stronger feeling. Although there was
not a soul in the square, I felt as if I was regarding the world and
mankind with different eyes from those of yesterday. Then I knew nothing;
to-day I knew everything--so it seemed to me. It seemed to me that I