sounds drew her sisters from below; they found her,
armed with something heavy, smashing every breakable object in her
bedroom--mirrors, toilet-ware, pictures, chimney-piece ornaments.

'She's gone mad!' shrieked Fanny. 'She'll kill us!'

'That beast shall pay for it!' yelled Ada, with a frantic blow at the
dressing-table.

Wanton destruction of property revolted all Beatrice's instincts.
Courageous enough, she sprang upon the wild animal, and flung her down.

Now indeed the last trace of veneer was gone, the last rag of
pseudo-civilisation was rent off these young women; in physical
conflict, vilifying each other like the female spawn of Whitechapel,
they revealed themselves as born--raw material which the mill of
education is supposed to convert into middle-class ladyhood. As a result
of being held still by superior strength Ada fell into convulsions,
foamed at the mouth, her eyes starting from their sockets; then she lay
as one dead.

'You've killed her,' cried the terrified Fanny.

'No fear. Give me some water to pitch over her.'

With a full jug from another bedroom, she drenched the prostrate figure.
When Ada came round she was powerless; even her rancorous lips could
utter only a sound of moaning. The sisters stripped her stark naked on
the floor, made a show of drying her with towels, and tumbled her into
bed. Then Beatrice brewed a great jorum of hot whisky-punch, and after
drinking freely to steady her shaken nerves, poured a pint or so down
Mrs. Peachey's throat.

'There won't be a funeral just yet,' she remarked, with a laugh. 'Now
we'll have supper; I feel hungry.'

They went to bed at something after midnight. The servants, having
stolen a bottle of spirits from the cupboard, which Beatrice left open,
both got drunk, and slept till morning upon the kitchen-floor.

On the morrow, Miss. French, attired as a walking advertisement of the
South London Fashionable Dress Supply Association, betook herself to
Farringdon Street for an interview with her commercial friend. Crewe was
absent, but one of three clerks, who occupied his largest room, informed
her that it could not be very long before he returned, and being
so familiar a figure here, she was permitted to wait in the agent's
sanctum. When the door closed upon her, the three young men discussed
her character with sprightly freedom. Beatrice, the while, splendidly
indifferent to the remarks she could easily divine, made a rapid
examination of loo