"She daren't; she's too keen on a good thing; but I'll bet she has
her knife into you if she gets a chance."

Presently, Miss Meakin got confidential; she told Mavis how she was
engaged to be married; also, that she met her "boy" by chance at a
public library, where they both asked the librarian for Browning at
the same time, and that this had brought them together.

The girls went down to dinner in two batches. When it was time for
Mavis to go (she was in the second lot), she was weary with
exhaustion; the continued standing, the absence of fresh air, her
poor breakfast, all conspired to cause her mental and physical
distress.

The contaminated air of the passage leading to the eating-room
brought on a feeling of nausea. Miss Meakin, noticing Mavis change
colour, remarked:

"We're all like that at first: you'll soon get used to it."

If the atmosphere of the downstair regions discouraged appetite, the
air in the glazed bricked dining-room was enough to take it away; it
was heavy with the reek arising from cooked joints and vegetables.
Mavis took her place, when a plate heaped up with meat and
vegetables was passed to her. One look was enough: the meat was cag
mag, and scarcely warm at that; the potatoes looked uninvitingly
soapy; the cabbage was coarse and stringy; all this mess was
seemingly frozen in the white fat of what had once been gravy. Mavis
sickened and turned away her head; she noticed that the food