well-meaning constraint, it was directed that only the very
scantiest meals (plain bread and cheese, in fact) should be supplied
to those who did not take advantage of the holiday.

Messrs. Scotcher and Co. were large-minded men. Not only did they
insist that the Sunday ought to be used for bodily recreation, but
they had no objection whatever to their young friends taking a
stroll after closing-time each evening. Nay, so generous and
confiding were they, that to each young person they allowed a
latchkey. The air of Walworth Road is pure and invigorating about
midnight; why should the reposeful ramble be hurried by
consideration for weary domestics?

Monica always felt too tired to walk after ten o'clock; moreover,
the usual conversation in the dormitory which she shared with five
other young women was so little to her taste that she wished to be
asleep when the talkers came up to bed. But on Sunday she gladly
followed the counsel of her employers. If the weather were bad, the
little room at Lavender Hill offered her a retreat; when the sun
shone, she liked to spend a part of the day in free wandering about
London, which even yet had not quite disillusioned her.

And to-day it shone brightly. This was her birthday, the completion
of her one-and-twentieth year. Alice and Virginia of course expected
her early in the morning, and of course they were all to dine
together--at the table measuring three feet by one and a half; but
the afternoon and evening she must have to herself The afternoon,
because a few hours of her sister's talk invariably depressed her;
and the evening, because she had an appointment to keep. As she left
the big ugly 'establishment' her heart beat cheerfully, and a smile