factory." "Well,
I never! She's a wide un, she is!" "About as wide as Broad Street, my
dear. Use ter sell flowers in Piccadilly Circus till somebody spoke to
'er, and now she rides 'er brougham, doncher know." Then the laughter
would be general, and the girls would go off with their arms about each
other's waists, and singing, in the street substitute for the stage
whisper, "And 'er golden 'air was 'anging dahn 'er back!"

This yellow-haired and yellow-fingered sisterhood saw the game of life
pretty clearly, and it did not take them long to get abreast of Glory.
"Like this life, my dear?" "Go on! Do she look as if she liked it?"

"Perhaps I do, perhaps I don't," said Glory.

"Tell that to the marines, my dear. I use ter be in a shop myself, but I
couldn't a-bear it. Give me my liberty, I say; and if a girl's got any
sort o' figure----Unnerstand, my dear?"

Late that night one of the girls came in breathless and cried: "Hooraa!
What d'ye think? Betty wants a dresser, and I've got the shop for ye, my
dear. Guinea a week and the pickings; and you go tomorrow night on trial.
By-bye!"

Glory's old infirmity came back upon her, and she felt hot and
humiliated. But her vanity was not so much wounded by the work that she
was offered as her honour was hurt by the work she was doing. Mrs. Jupe's
absences from home were now more frequent than ever. If the business that
took her abroad was akin to that which had taken her to Polly Love----

To put an end to her uneasiness, Glory presented herself at the stage
door.

"You the noo dresser, miss?" said the doorkeeper. "Collins has orders to
look after you.--Collins!"

A scraggy, ugly, untidy woman who was passing--through an inner door
looked back and listened.

"Come along of me then," she said, and Glory followed her, first down a
dark passage, then through a dusty avenue between stacks of scenery, then
across the open stage, up a flight of stairs, and into a room of moderate
size which had no window and no ventilation and contained three cheval
glasses, a couch, four cane-bottom chairs, three small toilet tables with
gas jets suspended over them, three large trunks, some boxes of
cigarettes, and a number of empty champagne bottles. Here there was
another woman as scraggy and untidy as the first, who bobbed her head at
Glory and then went on with her work, which was that of taking gorgeous
dresses out of one of the trunks and laying them on the end of the couch.

"She t