little care of herself, too little personal pride.

Sally resembled her mother. She too was small and thin. Her hair was pale brown, an insipid colour with a slight sandiness in it. Her cheeks were faintly freckled just under the eyes, and her nose, equally small and inquiring, had some freckles upon it too. Her eyelashes were light; her eyes a grey with splashes of amber. She was sitting huddled up near the window, breathing intently, looking out of it with eager, fascinated interest. The streets were full of lures. Outside, there was something which drew and absorbed her whole nature. The noise and the lights intoxicated her; the darkness was even more bewilderingly full of dangerous attractiveness. It was night, and night was the time when thrills came, when her heart beat closely with a sense of timid impudence, a sort of leashed daring. In darkness she brushed hands against the hands of boys, and got into conversation with strangers, and felt herself romantically transfigured. They couldn't see how plain she was in the dark: she herself forgot it. In the dark she felt that she was bolder, with nobody to observe her and carry tales to her mother. Boys who wouldn't look at her in daylight followed her at night along dark streets. She was getting very experienced with boys. She could look after herself with them. Her eyes interestedly and appraisingly scanned every male, so that she came to know a great deal about the ways of men, although she never put her knowledge into words. She scrutinised them. In daylight her plainness was a help in that, because they did not take any notice of so insignificant a figure, and she absorbed every detail of the "fellows" she met, without having to do it under their return observation, by means of side-glances. This was a benefit, and at heart made her bolder, more ruthless.

At this moment, watching the people come out from the little door in the shutter of the Supply Stores, Sally ignored the silhouettes of women; but she peered quite intensely at those of the men. Men filled her thoughts. She was always choosing which men she liked, and which did not interest her, and which were weak and easily exploited. Or, if she were prevented from doing that, she could still look at them, seeing that they were men, and not women. The noise was good, the lights were good; but the darkness, such as there now was in the street below, in all the diminished labour of late traffic, was best of all. She saw the last customer at the Stores shown to the door by Mr. Beddow, the keeper of the shop; and the narrow door in the shutters closed. The last stream of light was abruptly cut off. The face of the Stores was black. All the opposite side of the roadway was now black. There were no more silhouettes.

Mr. Beddow's cheeks were very fat, and when he smiled his eyes disappeared into slits just behind the top of his bulging cheeks. He wore a light frizzly beard. Once Mr. Beddow had given her a little bottle of acid-drops. All the acid-drops were gone now. She had given some of them to May Pearcey, who worked with her. They had eaten the remainder next day over their work, while Miss Jubb was out of the room; and the drops had made them thirsty and had given them hot, sweet breath. Funny she should remember it all so clearly.

May Pearcey and she were both learners at a small dressmaker's shop in a street off Holloway Road. They used to walk together along Grove Road in the mornings, and at dinner-time, and in the evenings. But the boys all looked at May, who was a big girl with rosy cheeks and eyes that were bold with many conquests. Sally only got the soppy ones. That was her luck. Sally wondered why a good-looking boy so often had a soppy one with him. She wasn't soppy herself. The boys thought she was; they never looked at her. But May picked up the good-looking ones, and Sally had to take what was left. She hated to see her boy always looking on at the others, at May, and never at herself; she hated to know that her boy didn't like the look of her, and that he couldn't think of anything to say to her; and didn't take the trouble to think very hard. It made Sally snap her teeth. One day, she reassured herself, it would be different. One day, they'd know.

Slowly she stretched, with her arms high above her head and her mouth stretched sideways in a yawn. Was mother asleep? She felt cramped and tired, and as she turned round to the light her eyes blinked at the contrast with the outer darkness.

ii

"Oo!" groaned Sally. "Tired!"

She yawned again, a yawn that ended in a breathless gasp. Mrs. Minto looked across the room at her.

"D'you want any supper?" she asked.

"Wotcher got? Peaches and cream, and a glass of champagne?"

Mrs. Minto wriggled her skinny shoulders and fingered her chin.

"Don't you be saucy to me, my gel. There's a bit of dry bread on the plate there. And half a glass of stout. You might think yourself lucky to get that."

"Well, I s'pose I might. But somehow I don't. Dry bread! It's Saturday, ain't it? What I mean, pay-day."

There was a sour glance. Mrs. Minto sighed, and looked at the clock, frowning and wriggling her shoulders. It was a form of constant drill or shudder that affected her.

"Yes," she said. "And your father not home. Pubs are closed. Wonder where he is. Come on, Sally. Get your supper and get to bed. Sharp, now."

Sally rose to her feet and walked across the room. She cut a hunk of bread, and stood about munching it, little crumbs gathering upon her lips. You could see how thin she was when her arm was raised. Yet she made a few little dancing steps as she ate, and her face was not without a comical air of mischief. She was an urchin, and she looked it. She was unscrupulous, and a liar; but she knew a great deal for her years, and she never shrank from knowledge, because she was athirst for it. Knowledge which could be turned to account was her preoccupation. She stood looking at her mother, weighing her up, and in the midst of her daughterly contempt she had room for a little admiration also. They were not altogether unlike; but Mrs. Minto had taken the wrong turning. She had married a drinker, and was a slave. Well, Sally had benefited by knowledge of that. She might marry a fool—probably would have to do so, as the wily ones took what they could get and went off on their own; but she would never marry so incautiously as her mother had done. Why should she? If one generation does not react to the follies of the earlier generation, and seek an exactly contrary evil, what becomes of progress? Sally had her wits. She thought they would never fail her.

As she sat down near her mother, they both heard a sudden slamming of the front door, two flights of stairs below. Their eyes flew in an exchanged glance that held trepidation. It was probably dad, and at this time on a Saturday night dad was usually the worse for wear. Both listened. There was a heavy step. Then the sound of voices—a woman's raised voice, and dad's. It was evidently a row. Sally ran to the door, and they listened to what was passing. Down the half-lighted stairway they could just discern two figures, faintly outlined in the wavering flutter of gas. Obviously dad was drunk, for he was haranguing a rather hysterical Mrs. Clancy, who stood at the foot of the stairs and shouted after him. She said that he was drunk, that he ought not to come in at that time of night stumbling about like an ostrich, that decent people liked a little quiet, if he pleased. Mr. Minto said he would come in when he chose, and in what state he preferred. He was not obliged to consult such an indiscriminate mother as Mrs. Clancy, and he would not do it. Far from it. Far from it. He stood for liberty. He had as good a right to the staircase as anybody else in the