The chairman was already in his place; on the table before him was a
soup-plate, into which each visitor threw a contribution on
arriving. Seated on the benches were a number of men, women, and
girls, all with pewters or glasses before them, and the air was
thickening with smoke of pipes. The beneficiary of the evening, a
portly person with a face of high satisfaction, sat near the
chairman, and by him were two girls of decent appearance, his
daughters. The president puffed at a churchwarden and exchanged
genial banter with those who came up to deposit offerings. Mr. Dick
Perkins, the Vice, was encouraging a spirit of conviviality at the
other end. A few minutes after Thyrza and her companions had
entered, a youth of the seediest appearance struck introductory
chords on the piano, and started off at high pressure with a
selection of popular melodies. The room by degrees grew full. Then
the chairman rose, and with jocular remarks announced the first
song.

Totty had several acquaintances present, male and female; her
laughter frequently sounded above the hubbub of voices. Thyrza, who
had declined to have anything to drink, shrank into as little space
as possible; she was nervous and self-reproachful, yet the singing
and the uproar gave her a certain pleasure. There was nothing in the
talk around her and the songs that were sung that made it a shame
for her to be present. Plebeian good-humour does not often
degenerate into brutality at meetings of this kind until a late hour
of the evening. The girls who sat with glasses of beer before them,
and carried on primitive flirtations with their neighbours, were
honest wage-earners of factory and workshop, well able to make
themselves respected. If they lacked refinement, natural or