he snow has been so
industrious that not a mouse has stirred if he could help it. However, I
send three big kisses instead, and a pair of mittens for
grandfather--worked with my own hands, because I wouldn't allow any good
Brownie to do it for me. Tell Aunt Rachel I _do_ see the Prince and
Princess sometimes. I saw them at the theatre the other night. Yes, the
theatre! You must not be shocked--we are rather gay in London--we go to
the theatre occasionally. It is so interesting to meet all the great
people! You see I am fairly launched in fashionable society, but I love
everybody just the same as ever, and the moment the candle is out I shall
be thinking of Glenfaba and seeing the 'Waits,' and 'Oiel Verree,' and
'Hunting the Wren,' and grandfather smoking his pipe in the study by the
light of the fire, and Sir Thomas Traddles, the tailless, purring and
blinking at his feet. Merry Christmas to you, my dears! By-bye."

VIII.

"'Where's that bright young Irish laidy?' the gentlemen's allwiz sayin',
my dear," said Mrs. Jupe, and for very shame's sake, having no money to
pay for board and lodgings, Glory returned to the counter.

A little beyond Bedford Row, in a rookery of apartment houses in narrow
streets, there lives a colony of ballet girls and chorus girls who are
employed at the lighter theatres of the Strand. They are a noisy, merry,
reckless, harmless race, free of speech, fond of laughter, wearing false
jewellery, false hair, and false complexions, but good boots always,
which they do their utmost not to conceal.

Many of these girls pass through the Turnstile on their way to their
work, and toward seven in the evening the tobacconist's would be full of
them. Nearly all smoked, as the stained forefinger of their right hands
showed, and while they bought their cigarettes they chirruped and chirped
until the little shop was like a tree full of linnets in the spring.

Most of them belonged to the Frailty Theatre, and their usual talk was of
the "stars" engaged there. Chief among these were the "Sisters Bellman,"
a trio of singers in burlesque, and a frequent subject of innuendo and
rapartee was one Betty, of that ilk, whose name Glory could remember to
have seen blazing in gold on nearly every hoarding and sign.

"Says she was a governess in the country, my dear." "Oh, yus, I dare say.
Came out of a slop shop in the Mile End Road though, and learned 'er
steps with the organ man in the court a-back of the jam