-yes; but say you like
murders! What wicked people there are in the world, to be sure. I hope
they hanged him."

"Doesn't it say?" mumbled Sally, dealing with a chocolate with caramel
inside it.

"It's torn across. It's what I got your shoes in, Sally. It's a.... It's
'Stories of Famous Trials,' in the Weekly Something.... I can't see what
it is."

For the next quarter of an hour Sally ate chocolates and read about the
trial of Seddon for murdering Miss Barrow.

"Miss Barrow!" she exclaimed. "Wonder if she was any relation to old
Perce! I'll ask Mrs. Perce about it. Oo--fancy Tollington Park! Quite
near us in Hornsey Road."

Mrs. Minto shuddered, and looked furtively at the clock, longing for
her bedtime. Sally caught the glance, shut up the box of chocolates, and
folded the paper.

"You going to work?" asked her mother.

"Wash my hair."

"You're always washing ... _washing_, you call it!" cried Mrs. Minto.

Sally ignored the sneer, and proceeded to her occupation. There was a
silence. Mrs. Minto yawned. She looked at Sally making her preparations,
and into her face came a watchful anxiety that was mingled with profound
esteem. There was a _chic_ about her girl that made Mrs. Minto assume
this expression quite often, and Sally knew it. She knew it now, and was
elaborately unconscious of it. As she waited for the kettle and moved
the lamp so that it would illumine the washstand, she whistled to show
how blind she was to any sign of emotion from her mother. When the
whistle was unavailing, she said sharply:

"Don't you think this is a pretty frock, ma?"

Mrs. Minto sighed heavily, and pulled herself up out of her chair.

"Far _too_ pretty, if you ask me," she said. "Looks to me fast." She was
full of concern, and did not try to hide it from Sally.

"Oo!" cried Sally. "You _are_ stupid, ma!" And with that she whipped the
dress over her head and revealed the fact that she wore no petticoat.
Her mother was the more outraged.

Sally began to sing.

"'When you and I go down the love path together,
Stars shall be shining and the night so fair.'"

"Well, it's a good thing nobody else sees you like that," sniffed her
mother, rebukingly. "I don't know what they _would_ think!"

Sally forebore to make the obvious retort. Her mother prepared for bed.

ix

For the next fortnight Sally did not see Gaga, and only at the end of
the period did she learn that he had been away from London on business.
This w