en, sedately bidding Miss Summers
"good-afternoon" and smiling a cool farewell to the girls. The buzz of
their amazed whispering followed her into the waiting-room. She felt
their eyes like stings in her back. On the way downstairs the memory of
the scene and an understanding of the girls' feelings made her laugh.
Well, that was that; and she was face to face with her problem in its
entirety. Unconsciously, Sally walked more erect.

xii

Sally never went back to the workroom. She hurried from it to the old
house in Kensington in which the Merricks had lived for years; and as
she saw the house, so black with dust, and the steps that led up to the
heavy front door, even Sally's heart quailed. She hesitated for several
minutes before going up the steps, and loitered there, a little figure
in a grey dress, trim and _chic_, but not at all the girl to take
control of such a mansion and of the difficulties which lay within. She
could not tell what a mass of custom the house indicated; but her
instinct was enough to make her feel extraordinarily small,
extraordinarily untrained and incapable. It had been very well for her
to suppose that everything could be seized and controlled at a glance.
The reality was too solid for a longer dream. Thoughtless,
over-confident as her fantasy had been, she had the sense which a child
has when a running man comes threateningly near--of a great shape, of
unexpected size and dangerousness, looming out of the focussed picture,
and setting all previous conceptions at nought. Here was this giant
house, and Madam lying dead in it, and servants who would resent her
appearance, and Gaga; and Sally was such a little girl in the face of a
definite trial. She was a little girl, and she would never be able to
deal with what lay ahead. It was a long, devastating spasm of doubt,
like a trembling of the earth. The house towered above her, huge and
gloomy; and other houses, equally oppressive, continued from the
Merricks' house, with basements and railings and great black fronts and
lace curtains, until the road turned and its end was unseen. And Sally,
who had lived all her life in small flats and single rooms, was shaken.
Her heart sank. She entered the house. Her head was high, from pride;
but her qualms were intense. An atmosphere of solemn melancholy made
everybody speak in low tones. She had difficulty in remaining calm.

All the rooms were large rooms, filled with large furniture and old
pictures