life as a miner, I believe. Looks like ending as Prime Minister."

"I heard him at the Albert Hall last week," said Flossie. "He's quite
wonderful."

"In what way?" questioned Joan.

"Oh, you know," explained Flossie. "Like a volcano compressed into a
steam engine."

They discussed Joan's plans. It looked as if things were going to be
easy for her.




CHAPTER IV


Yet in the end it was Carleton who opened the door for her.

Mrs. Denton was helpful, and would have been more so, if Joan had only
understood. Mrs. Denton lived alone in an old house in Gower Street,
with a high stone hall that was always echoing to sounds that no one but
itself could ever hear. Her son had settled, it was supposed, in one of
the Colonies. No one knew what had become of him, and Mrs. Denton
herself never spoke of him; while her daughter, on whom she had centred
all her remaining hopes, had died years ago. To those who remembered the
girl, with her weak eyes and wispy ginger coloured hair, it would have
seemed comical, the idea that Joan resembled her. But Mrs. Denton's